The Others - A Civilisation or A Created Weapon?

[Brandon Ice-Eyes]

The Others - A Civilisation or A Created Weapon?

So do you believe The Others are a civilisation that have been thriving in The Lands of Always Winter and are migrating south for a reason that we will find out in TWOW and ADOS with a unique culture, language and way of life or do you buy the abominations reasoning that they were created by the Children of The Forest to fight the First men or perhaps another reason as to there origins?

Leave your thoughts down below!

[Putin]

I always imagined far far into north there is icy mountain with some form of castle within it. Inside resides the Great Other the source of all evil , the opposite and enemy of the Red God. Others are his creation not just pure weapon but race just a bit more evil with their own free will.This is my own ideal version .

I was very disappointed with fact that in tv show they were simply created by children of the forest, which ruined them in my opinion.I really hope that will not be case in books too , someone wrote that is not possible in books due to some reasons which I don't remember now.

[Brandon Ice-Eyes]

5 minutes ago, Putin said:

I always imagined far far into north there is icy mountain with some form of castle within it. Inside resides the Great Other the source of all evil , the opposite and enemy of the Red God. Others are his creation not just pure weapon but race just a bit more evil with their own free will.This is my own ideal version .

I was very disappointed with fact that in tv show they were simply created by children of the forest, which ruined them in my opinion.I really hope that will not be case in books too , someone wrote that is not possible in books due to some reasons which I don't remember now.

Yeah I like that idea. The show definitely disappointed a lot but they really let us down on the others simply being a creation of the CoTF, it just felt like such a cop out. I hope they are there own unique and structured civilisation and not just some great evil - “the big bad wolf” so to speak - that’s been sent south to destroy humanity. I think we’re going to learn a lot more about them in TWOW. 

[Narsil4]

The parallels the Others seem to have to the Unsullied and the Lady of Spears, might suggest that they were once created weapons under the control of a master, which have since tried to find their own way. 

[The Map Guy]

The Others are aliens from another planet, a colder planet

Once on Planetos, they thought they could take over the planet in the Long Night, until they met resistance from humans and their weapon - Fire

Once the Others saw the man-made weapon of Fire, they ran away like a hound with its tail tucked between its legs

But they begin their conquest again as a human traitor offered the Others a chance to harness the power of Fire remotely, through Dragons.

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

On 3/14/2020 at 4:53 PM, Brandon Ice-Eyes said:

The Others - A Civilisation or A Created Weapon?

So do you believe The Others are a civilisation that have been thriving in The Lands of Always Winter and are migrating south for a reason that we will find out in TWOW and ADOS with a unique culture, language and way of life or do you buy the abominations reasoning that they were created by the Children of The Forest to fight the First men or perhaps another reason as to there origins?

Leave your thoughts down below!

The former.  There is are two opposing forces in Martin's world. We can expect an opposing form of life to the warm blood humans.  They are the equal of humans in terms of intelligence.  Humans cannot survive in the absence of heat and light. The Others cannot survive in warm weather.  The second idea was created by people other than Martin. 

[Leo of House Cartel]

Hard to pick at the moment, but the Op really gets the imagination going, so I'll offer some random musings. 

The "genetically engineered by the COTF" take does pose many questions, as the Children have been promoted as so connected natural life, to the point where it can sometimes seem odd that they would create a species which seemingly has such an adverse effect on animal and plant based lifeforms. If the COTF did create the White Walkers to do battle with the First Men, one has to wonder how the little tree people might have debated such a course of action before they made the final decision. 

If they knew exactly how these genetic constructs would turn out, how would they justify risking the rest of Planetos, just to defeat the FM? Perhaps some Greenseer caught a glimpse of a future where humans had destroyed the natural world anyway, leading the COTF to try and "get them before they get us". 

Then again, if the White Walkers were created by the Children to be a weapon against the FM, I wonder how much the idea of revenge might have came into play.

The First Men are said to have nearly wiped out their plant loving rivals - might it then be possible that the Children wanted to take a kind of Aerys II like "to hell with the city/forest - burn/freeze them all!" approach to dealing with the enemies who had them on the brink of defeat? How many murdered loved ones might it take for a Child Of The Forest to finally snap? 

If we are talking society or creation, I've often wondered how these "ice demons" might link to, or interact with, the multiple "higher power" figures seen in human society, specifically a theorised "water deity" like the Drowned God.

If the Others are aware of humanities various belief systems -  which they could be, assuming the "wighting" of a corpse allows the Walkers access to the memories of the deceased - would they have an opinion on the humans worshipping a water god? How might they view the overall connection between water and ice? 

Hell, if there really is a Drowned God, what might he think of the Others? Might it even be possible that the Ironborn deity somehow created White Shadows, with the intention of conquering the land as he had the deep? Freeze the earth, melt the ice, and flood the world, giving us one great ocean? A bit of a tinfoil laden proposal, and while I don't prescribe to this idea myself, I do believe the Others' connection to certain gods and concepts are worth looking at. 

Think of a god like He of Many Faces, aka the God of Death. This goes back to the "water or ice coming first " line of thinking, but how might the cold and darkness associated with The Others link to a proposed deity who is said to represent death itself? I'm not sure, but I can't really see the Faceless Men, or their God, being responsible for the creation of the Others. That said, the connection between ice and death is certainly interesting -  corpses go cold, after all. 

While corpses do go cold, the cold itself can also preserve, both the living and the dead. The potential then arrises for the Others themselves being - depending on how you look at it - a more "positive" force.

Perhaps they are an example of some mad-scientist-type perverting the course of nature, or perhaps they are an example someone or something g producing a way to "keep death at bay" through the preservative qualities of ice, as well as the Cold Shadows' ability to reanimate corpses.

So far we have seen the Others being able to "make the dead walk", so I must ask, how far do we think these abilities go? Can they merely telepathically control "zombies"? Or might the Others also be able to truley breath life into the dead? Where does the reanimation stop and the resurrection begin?  

 

[Loose Bolt]

What about idea that to Others this war is their version of Vietnam War? Or their cities are full of hippies carrying "Make love not war" banners. Actually that is real reason why their armies use flesh puppets. Or this war is so unpopular that their government cannot find enough volunteers among their own people to fight and so their soldiers had to improvise to fix that problem.

[kissdbyfire]

9 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

Hard to pick at the moment, but the Op really gets the imagination going, so I'll offer some random musings. 

I’d say impossible to be certain atm, with the info we have. And since all we can do is speculate, let’s get on w/ it!

 

9 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

The "genetically engineered by the COTF" take does pose many questions, as the Children have been promoted as so connected natural life, to the point where it can sometimes seem odd that they would create a species which seemingly has such an adverse effect on animal and plant based lifeforms. If the COTF did create the White Walkers to do battle with the First Men, one has to wonder how the little tree people might have debated such a course of action before they made the final decision. 

And I think the problem goes beyond the CotF creating a “weapon” that could annihilate life “as we know it”. The raising of the dead seems to be very much against the natural cycle of life. 

I do think they were created, though. But by men, not the CotF. I also think it has to do w/ what I call “skinchanging envy” among some FM lineages that were left out of whatever really happened during the Pact between the CotF and the FM.

The only way I think the CotF could have created the WWs is if it was a small faction, a splinter cell if you will. But even that I find unlikely.

9 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

If they knew exactly how these genetic constructs would turn out, how would they justify risking the rest of Planetos, just to defeat the FM? Perhaps some Greenseer caught a glimpse of a future where humans had destroyed the natural world anyway, leading the COTF to try and "get them before they get us". 

Possible, I suppose. But again, quite unlikely IMO. 

<snip>

9 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

If we are talking society or creation, I've often wondered how these "ice demons" might link to, or interact with, the multiple "higher power" figures seen in human society, specifically a theorised "water deity" like the Drowned God.

If the Others are aware of humanities various belief systems -  which they could be, assuming the "wighting" of a corpse allows the Walkers access to the memories of the deceased - would they have an opinion on the humans worshipping a water god? How might they view the overall connection between water and ice? 

Hell, if there really is a Drowned God, what might he think of the Others? Might it even be possible that the Ironborn deity somehow created White Shadows, with the intention of conquering the land as he had the deep? Freeze the earth, melt the ice, and flood the world, giving us one great ocean? A bit of a tinfoil laden proposal, and while I don't prescribe to this idea myself, I do believe the Others' connection to certain gods and concepts are worth looking at. 

Many years ago I proposed a tinfoily idea of my own... What if the minor deities we see/hear of, like the DG and the SG, were created by the CotF in an attempt to subdue humanity through “faith”? We know they had their greenseers, and we know the greenseers and skinchangers (w/ the latter group being 1,000 times more numerous than the former) were able to slip into any animal and even speak. See where I’m going w/ this? I hope so, I feel so lazy right now!

9 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

Think of a god like He of Many Faces, aka the God of Death. This goes back to the "water or ice coming first " line of thinking, but how might the cold and darkness associated with The Others link to a proposed deity who is said to represent death itself? I'm not sure, but I can't really see the Faceless Men, or their God, being responsible for the creation of the Others. That said, the connection between ice and death is certainly interesting -  corpses go cold, after all. 

It makes no sense whatsoever to me that the Faceless Men and their cult or religion or faith would be connected to beings (?) that raise the dead. Even though they call their deity the many-faced god, who represents death, their whole belief system is based on Valar Morghulis: all men must die.

Given their “motto”, I think they align w/ the CotF and their natural ways and cycle of life and death and all that. 

9 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

While corpses do go cold, the cold itself can also preserve, both the living and the dead. The potential then arrises for the Others themselves being - depending on how you look at it - a more "positive" force.

Perhaps they are an example of some mad-scientist-type perverting the course of nature, or perhaps they are an example someone or something g producing a way to "keep death at bay" through the preservative qualities of ice, as well as the Cold Shadows' ability to reanimate corpses.

So far we have seen the Others being able to "make the dead walk", so I must ask, how far do we think these abilities go? Can they merely telepathically control "zombies"? Or might the Others also be able to truley breath life into the dead? Where does the reanimation stop and the resurrection begin?  

There’s just too many pieces still missing... irt the bold, no way. Just my 2p, of course. 

[Leo of House Cartel]

3 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

And I think the problem goes beyond the CotF creating a “weapon” that could annihilate life “as we know it”. The raising of the dead seems to be very much against the natural cycle of life. 

I do think they were created, though. But by men, not the CotF. I also think it has to do w/ what I call “skinchanging envy” among some FM lineages that were left out of whatever really happened during the Pact between the CotF and the FM.

I'd like to hear more about this idea, seems like a pretty cool take which I've not seen. 

3 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

The only way I think the CotF could have created the WWs is if it was a small faction, a splinter cell if you will. But even that I find unlikely.

A COTF splinter cell makes me think of something like the Ifequevron, but I don't find it likely that they were responsible for the creation of the Others.Perhaps the difference between certain the red and green eyed COTF could suggest some kind of cultural differences, but one might expect blue eyes if we are talking about a parent figure for the Cold Shadows.

3 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Many years ago I proposed a tinfoily idea of my own... What if the minor deities we see/hear of, like the DG and the SG, were created by the CotF in an attempt to subdue humanity through “faith”? We know they had their greenseers, and we know the greenseers and skinchangers (w/ the latter group being 1,000 times more numerous than the former) were able to slip into any animal and even speak. See where I’m going w/ this? I hope so, I feel so lazy right now!

Don't worry, you're speaking my local tinfoilish dialect :-p 

While foil may be tinny, I do think your idea of the COTF mentally influencing human belief systems is an extremely strong possibility. The Children apparently taught the First Men to believe in the Old Gods, so one imagines they would have quickly recognised the power and influence which religion can hold over humans. In this case, I think its highly plausible they would see the value in creating different deitys for the humans to fear. 

In terms of more recent activity regarding the COTF and human religions, we know some Wok Nak Dag Gram, such as Leaf, ventured South of Wall during the Targaryen era. This, combined with the abilities of Bloodraven himself, leaves the potential for all sorts of faith based skinchanging, whispering and shenanigans. 

3 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

It makes no sense whatsoever to me that the Faceless Men and their cult or religion or faith would be connected to beings (?) that raise the dead. Even though they call their deity the many-faced god, who represents death, their whole belief system is based on Valar Morghulis: all men must die.

Given their “motto”, I think they align w/ the CotF and their natural ways and cycle of life and death and all that. 

Nicely put. If all men must die then I wonder what the likes of the Kindly Man or Jaquen would think of the stories surrounding the Others' enthrallment the dead. Terms like "an afront to our beliefs", "abomination" and "heresy" spring to mind. If the Faceless Men were to somehow view compelling enough evidence of a wight, perhaps this could be enough for the House of Black to join the fight against the coming cold. 

@kissdbyfire

In regards to the concepts of the Others' society and culture, what's your opinion on the theorised "laughter" they displayed during the duel with Waymar Royce?

Analysing a society's sence of humour can be a great way to understand their overall culture, so I wonder, what it was they found so funny in this situation? 

Was it "jock" style humour in the sense of "haha, this little dweeby human totally ain't as athletic as me!"?

Maybe it was some kind of "obnoxious blacksmith" type-thing where the Cold Shadows regarded Waymar's daft human sword in the same way one of us might look at a dodgy 80s movie which is "so bad, it's good". 

The Others are described to have a certain "beauty" and "elegance", so perhaps they were laughing because they simply find beauty in death, comedy in tragedy. 

[kissdbyfire]

15 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

I'd like to hear more about this idea, seems like a pretty cool take which I've not seen. 

The bare-bones of it is, some FM lineages received skinchanging/greenseeing abilities from the CotF, possibly when they made peace and signed the Pact. This may have been accomplished through magic or interbreeding or some other way. I think the sigils of the FM houses give us hints as to which of the current lineages were among the ones that received this “gift”; for instance, Stark, Mormont, Umber, Hornwood, Blackwood, etc.

And then there are lineages that were left out, for whatever reason. Like the Boltons. And maybe their penchant for flaying their enemies and wearing their skin comes from “skinchanging envy”.

15 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

In regards to the concepts of the Others' society and culture, what's your opinion on the theorised "laughter" they displayed during the duel with Waymar Royce?

I’m not sure they were laughing... I mean, in a way it reads that way, but maybe it isn’t? It’s just that we know so little about the WWs that it’s pretty hard to piece stuff together. We know their voices sound like the “cracking of ice”, and when we get Will’s thoughts on what is going on the text says, “[Far beneath him,] he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles”. 

So, their voices sound like ice breaking, but we know nothing about their language. Is it even a language? Do they have a culture of their own? Martin said he wasn’t sure they did. Going back to the “laughter”, I think it’s important to remember that this description is coming from a character who is far above the ground, terrified for his life. Short answer is, I don’t know.

Maybe it was laughter, maybe not. 

15 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

Analysing a society's sence of humour can be a great way to understand their overall culture, so I wonder, what it was they found so funny in this situation? 

15 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

Was it "jock" style humour in the sense of "haha, this little dweeby human totally ain't as athletic as me!"?

If they were indeed laughing, this would be my #1 guess.

15 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

Maybe it was some kind of "obnoxious blacksmith" type-thing where the Cold Shadows regarded Waymar's daft human sword in the same way one of us might look at a dodgy 80s movie which is "so bad, it's good". 

Oi!!!

Raiders of the Lost Ark, FBDO, The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, The Breakfast Club, The Right Stuff, ET, Die Hard, Stand by Me, Full Metal Jacket, The Goonies, Platoon, Airplane!, Blue Velvet, This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride... I could go on and on, but I think you catch my drift. 

 

15 hours ago, Leo of House Cartel said:

The Others are described to have a certain "beauty" and "elegance", so perhaps they were laughing because they simply find beauty in death, comedy in tragedy. 

Black humour? I like it!

 

[Tyrion1991]

On 3/14/2020 at 8:53 PM, Brandon Ice-Eyes said:

The Others - A Civilisation or A Created Weapon?

So do you believe The Others are a civilisation that have been thriving in The Lands of Always Winter and are migrating south for a reason that we will find out in TWOW and ADOS with a unique culture, language and way of life or do you buy the abominations reasoning that they were created by the Children of The Forest to fight the First men or perhaps another reason as to there origins?

Leave your thoughts down below!

 

Aliens! The comet was their space ship and it crashed in the North. Everything they do is just advanced tech and the dumb dumb humans are projecting their superstitious beliefs onto them.

Honestly, we know so little about the Others that George is probably either never goi g to tell us or could make anything up.

[BlackLightning]

Honestly, them being aliens is not even that big of a stretch.

I think of them as being more along the lines of elves but aliens is nice.