The Others, The Nightfort, The Lord's Right and the TOJ

[CamiloRP]

I was reading throw the Winterfell Huis Clos (an amazing series of essays I haven't yet finnished, but you can find here)  and an idea came to mind, I was gonna post it in a recent topic by @Alyn Oakenfist about the importance of R+L=J (which you can find here) but midway through it I realized it was going to be a big comment and no one was gonna read it, so here it goes:

Also, it's a pretty crackpot theory and when thinking about the stories endgame won't be my first choice, but still, I kinda like it.

 

For starters let's set some ideas that aren't necessarily of my own making:

 

1. The Black Gate and child sacrifice

Tho I had already thought about some of these things, this can be found in The Winterfer Huis Clos (more specifically here) which I whole heartedly recommend if you want a more thorough analysis. But the basic idea that I want to point out is the following: the Black Gate was created as a mean to give bastards born of the first night to The Others. 

The evidence for this includes the fact that the gate looks like a weirwood, which opens it's mouth to let people through, this looks like the one who's going through is being consumed by a god, which is perfect imagery for religious sacrifice.

 

Quote

The Black Gate, Sam had called it, but it wasn't black at all.

It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it.

A glow came from the wood, like milk and moonlight, so faint it scarcely seemed to touch anything beyond the door itself, not even Sam standing right before it. The face was old and pale, wrinkled and shrunken. It looks dead. Its mouth was closed, and its eyes; its cheeks were sunken, its brow withered, its chin sagging. If a man could live for a thousand years and never die but just grow older, his face might come to look like that.

The door opened its eyes.

They were white too, and blind. "Who are you?" the door asked, and the well whispered, "Who-who-who-who-who-who-who."

"I am the sword in the darkness," Samwell Tarly said. "I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men."

"Then pass," the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Jojen through ahead of him. Summer followed, sniffing as he went, and then it was Bran's turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door's upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran's head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.

(ASOS Chapter 56, Bran IV)

 

There's also the fact that throwing unwanted children down wells is a common practice in Westeros, and the Black Gate is under the Nightfort's well.

 

Quote

Summer circled the well, sniffing. He paused by the top step and looked back at Bran. He wants to go.

(ASOS Chapter 56, Bran IV)

 

Quote

The countryside had no grotes-queries or mummer shows ... though it did have wells aplenty, to swallow up unwanted kittens, three-headed calves, and babes like him.

(ADWD Chapter 14, Tyrion IV)

 

There's also Alyssane, we know she did a few things:

She caused the Nightfort to be closed down.

Quote

Alysanne suggested to the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch that the Nightfort, the oldest and largest castle at the Wall, which was too costly to maintain, be replaced with a smaller castle nearby. She used her own jewels (including her own crown) to finance the construction of the castle, which was named Deep Lake.

(From the wiki I con't have a digital copy of Fire And Blood nor TWOIAF)

 

She gave the New Gift  to the watch (which likely used to belong to the houses Roose claims still practice the lord's right to the first knight).

Quote

Alysanne so admired the Night's Watch's bravery that she convinced Jaehaerys to double the amount of land held by the black brothers^[1] after having reunited with him at Winterfell.

(wiki)

 

And the Watch renamed Snowgate (bastard gate?) to Queen's Gate in her honor.

Quote

"Good Queen Alysanne, they called her later. One of the castles on the Wall was named for her as well. Queensgate. Before her visit they called it Snowgate."

(ASOS Chapter 41, Jon V)

 

So, could all of these things be related? could she have given this lands to The Watch to prevent the lord's right? could she have closed down TNF to stop the sacrifices?

 

There's also the fact that the houses Old Nan suspects of being the house to which the Night's King belonged to and the houses Roose 'acuses' of practicing the lord's right line up pretty well.

Quote

"Some say he was a Bolton," Old Nan would always end. "Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down." She always pinched Bran on the nose then, he would never forget it. "He was a Stark of Winterfell, and who can say? Mayhaps his name was Brandon. Mayhaps he slept in this very bed in this very room."

(ASOS Chapter 56, Bran IV)

 

Quote

The maesters will tell you that King Jaehaerys abolished the lord's right to the first night to appease his shrewish queen, but where the old gods rule, old customs linger. The Umbers keep the first night too, deny it as they may. Certain of the mountain clans as well, and on Skagos ... well, only heart trees ever see half of what they do on Skagos.

(ADWD Chapter 31, Reek III)

 

 

2. The Motives Of Th Others

One thing I find important to think about when discussing The Others is thinking about their motives and considering them 'human' (not in a biological way, but in an empathic way) GRRM never writes about supernatural all evil things that wan't to kill humanity just cause, in fact, he critics that way of thinking in my favorite book of his "The Armageddon Rag", and "In The House Of The Worms" is about two genetically distinct groups of people considering each other all-evil supernatural monsters while their salvation would be interbreeding with each other to survive the climate. 

So, what are The Other's motives then? Why do they take babies?

Quote

"He's of my village. You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t' strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters."

(ASOS Chapter 26, Jon III)

In my opinion is the same reason why the Freefolk don't mate with clan kin: inbreeding. Inbreeding comes with a bunch of genetic problems, and taking people with a different gene pool would help fix some of that, so The Others have inbreeding problems and have to turn to kidnapping babies from another species rather than just another family. These problems with inbreeding are stated in other GRRM works (mainly Dark, Dark Were The Tunnels), and in those works the solution was contact with another group of humans.

That would also mean The Others are human, at least partially, as GRRM has criticized Star Trek for having improbable breading between two different races (human and vulcan, like he says here at around 04:24) and in The Dying Of The Light he categorizes humans so genetically modified that they can no longer breed with base human as "notmen".

 

3. R+L

So, what does this have to do with R+L=J? Well, regardless if Jon is Lyanna's son or not, Jon is still a bastard, a northern bastard, meaning that, if the above is true, in another time he would have been sent as an offering to the other side of The Wall. But he's not just a Northerner, he would also be part Valiryan, and Valiryans, like The Others, are genetically distinct people, tho their genetics are tied to fire rather than ice. So, would the addition of Valiryan genes (another group that suffers from inbreeding, but in an 'opposite direction') help The Others in a significant way?

If Jon is The Prince Who Was Promised, who was he promised to? Was it to The Others as a part of a peace pact?

I have always doubted the notion of a battle for dawn (as @Curled Finger can definitely tell you) and Jon's story seems to lead him away from war, he starts thinking the people in Castle Black to be his enemies, but he turns them into his friends, then he thinks the Freefolk are his enemies, but he learns they are kin (via the Bael The Bard story)

Quote

"She even claimed we were kin. She told me a story . . . "

" . . . of Bael the Bard and the rose of Winterfell. So Stonesnake told me. It happens I know the song. Mance would sing it of old, when he came back from a ranging. He had a passion for wildling music. Aye, and for their women as well."

(ACOK Chapter 53, Jon VII)

Shortly after, he starts viewing them as allies and friends, could his solution to The Others be the same? Could he realize they are humans and seal a peace with a few marriage pacts, including himself, to help with The Other's inbreeding problem? 

That would explain the importance of both Stark genes (sacrifice to The Others) and Valiryan genes (enough of a different genetical background to help with the problems) while also the importance of his bastardy (he wouldn't be a sacrifice otherwise) and would explain in what way the prince was promised.

[Curled Finger]

1 hour ago, CamiloRP said:

I was reading throw the Winterfell Huis Clos (an amazing series of essays I haven't yet finnished, but you can find here)  and an idea came to mind, I was gonna post it in a recent topic by @Alyn Oakenfist about the importance of R+L=J (which you can find here) but midway through it I realized it was going to be a big comment and no one was gonna read it, so here it goes:

Also, it's a pretty crackpot theory and when thinking about the stories endgame won't be my first choice, but still, I kinda like it.

1. The Black Gate and child sacrifice

Tho I had already thought about some of these things, this can be found in The Winterfer Huis Clos (more specifically here) which I whole heartedly recommend if you want a more thorough analysis. But the basic idea that I want to point out is the following: the Black Gate was created as a mean to give bastards born of the first night to The Others. 

The evidence for this includes the fact that the gate looks like a weirwood, which opens it's mouth to let people through, this looks like the one who's going through is being consumed by a god, which is perfect imagery for religious sacrifice.

There's also the fact that throwing unwanted children down wells is a common practice in Westeros, and the Black Gate is under the Nightfort's well.

There's also Alyssane, we know she did a few things:

She caused the Nightfort to be closed down.

She gave the New Gift  to the watch (which likely used to belong to the houses Roose claims still practice the lord's right to the first knight).

And the Watch renamed Snowgate (bastard gate?) to Queen's Gate in her honor.

So, could all of these things be related? could she have given this lands to The Watch to prevent the lord's right? could she have closed down TNF to stop the sacrifices?

There's also the fact that the houses Old Nan suspects of being the house to which the Night's King belonged to and the houses Roose 'acuses' of practicing the lord's right line up pretty well.

2. The Motives Of Th Others

One thing I find important to think about when discussing The Others is thinking about their motives and considering them 'human' (not in a biological way, but in an empathic way) GRRM never writes about supernatural all evil things that wan't to kill humanity just cause, in fact, he critics that way of thinking in my favorite book of his "The Armageddon Rag", and "In The House Of The Worms" is about two genetically distinct groups of people considering each other all-evil supernatural monsters while their salvation would be interbreeding with each other to survive the climate. 

So, what are The Other's motives then? Why do they take babies?

In my opinion is the same reason why the Freefolk don't mate with clan kin: inbreeding. Inbreeding comes with a bunch of genetic problems, and taking people with a different gene pool would help fix some of that, so The Others have inbreeding problems and have to turn to kidnapping babies from another species rather than just another family. These problems with inbreeding are stated in other GRRM works (mainly Dark, Dark Were The Tunnels), and in those works the solution was contact with another group of humans.

That would also mean The Others are human, at least partially, as GRRM has criticized Star Trek for having improbable breading between two different races (human and vulcan, like he says here at around 04:24) and in The Dying Of The Light he categorizes humans so genetically modified that they can no longer breed with base human as "notmen".

 

3. R+L

So, what does this have to do with R+L=J? Well, regardless if Jon is Lyanna's son or not, Jon is still a bastard, a northern bastard, meaning that, if the above is true, in another time he would have been sent as an offering to the other side of The Wall. But he's not just a Northerner, he would also be part Valiryan, and Valiryans, like The Others, are genetically distinct people, tho their genetics are tied to fire rather than ice. So, would the addition of Valiryan genes (another group that suffers from inbreeding, but in an 'opposite direction') help The Others in a significant way?

If Jon is The Prince Who Was Promised, who was he promised to? Was it to The Others as a part of a peace pact?

I have always doubted the notion of a battle for dawn (as @Curled Finger can definitely tell you) and Jon's story seems to lead him away from war, he starts thinking the people in Castle Black to be his enemies, but he turns them into his friends, then he thinks the Freefolk are his enemies, but he learns they are kin (via the Bael The Bard story)

(ACOK Chapter 53, Jon VII)

Shortly after, he starts viewing them as allies and friends, could his solution to The Others be the same? Could he realize they are humans and seal a peace with a few marriage pacts, including himself, to help with The Other's inbreeding problem? 

That would explain the importance of both Stark genes (sacrifice to The Others) and Valiryan genes (enough of a different genetical background to help with the problems) while also the importance of his bastardy (he wouldn't be a sacrifice otherwise) and would explain in what way the prince was promised.

Winterfell Huis Clos is brilliant and I'm glad to hear you got through it and were inspired.  This is an interesting topic.   While all I can offer are my extremely contrary ideas to the culmination of the Others' story I can join you in a few of your musings here.  

There are many who believe the Black Gate was designed for offering up babies to the Others.  You've tied the practice in with the riddance of children of rape, inconvenience and well, stupidity.  I never thought this gate was for that, but for safeguarding the entrance.  No Wildlings.  No Others.  Only NW brothers can access this entrance.  You drawing attention to the fact that this gate is over a well makes a valid consideration if not point. 

There were 10,000 men in the NW when Aegon decided to take over.  This indicates that the NW was a popular place for men to go of their own free will as well as penalty.  I have been harping on Jon, Benjen and Waymar Royce for a few weeks now because they seem sacrificed to me, or maybe offered is a better verb here.  They were donated to the NW. This stinks of The Pact to me as well.  Is it possible that The Pact would require sacrifices, offerings or donations to both The Others and the order designed to keep them the hell away from the rest of Westeros?   

Now a magical character such as Queen Alysanne sacrificing her own crown (and much more) to fortify the Nights Watch is extremely interesting.  Taken in conjunction with her strong feminist (really just a sense of fairness and community) leaning against the first night it occurs to me you may actually be on to something here.  I would take this opportunity to point out that while the Wildling and Vale Mountain clans steal their women, they don't practice the first night.  This leads me down The Pact rabbit hole where these cultures are truly 1st Men and this first night thing came much later.  What would the Others do with disabled children?  Would they only take boys?  Fascinating.  Snowgate = Bastardgate is a good possibility.  Nice one, @CamiloRP.

The Others is where I disconnect.  It seems to me that intermingling with another species would do more damage than good, so perhaps the Others are simply converting humans in some way.  I still fail to see how that helps humanity.  Sacrifice is an agreement of sorts.  Again, the Wildlings don't seem to do this, other than Craster, who is Wildling by location exclusively.  His children are inbred, which is a terrible thing according to the Wildlings proper.  He practices first night on his own daughters and sacrifices the male children.  Does this mean the Others are female?   Are Caster's sons in some way a better offering because they are inbred?  Is this eugenics designed on some smaller scale to eliminate humanity, again, potentially part of The Pact?

While I freely admit I have no idea what the Others actually are or want, I do know that they act aggressively and with decided hostility against humans.  They need their asses kicked.  

[CamiloRP]

3 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

Winterfell Huis Clos is brilliant and I'm glad to hear you got through it and were inspired.  This is an interesting topic.   While all I can offer are my extremely contrary ideas to the culmination of the Others' story I can join you in a few of your musings here.  

There are many who believe the Black Gate was designed for offering up babies to the Others.  You've tied the practice in with the riddance of children of rape, inconvenience and well, stupidity.  I never thought this gate was for that, but for safeguarding the entrance.  No Wildlings.  No Others.  Only NW brothers can access this entrance.  You drawing attention to the fact that this gate is over a well makes a valid consideration if not point. 

There were 10,000 men in the NW when Aegon decided to take over.  This indicates that the NW was a popular place for men to go of their own free will as well as penalty.  I have been harping on Jon, Benjen and Waymar Royce for a few weeks now because they seem sacrificed to me, or maybe offered is a better verb here.  They were donated to the NW. This stinks of The Pact to me as well.  Is it possible that The Pact would require sacrifices, offerings or donations to both The Others and the order designed to keep them the hell away from the rest of Westeros?   

Now a magical character such as Queen Alysanne sacrificing her own crown (and much more) to fortify the Nights Watch is extremely interesting.  Taken in conjunction with her strong feminist (really just a sense of fairness and community) leaning against the first night it occurs to me you may actually be on to something here.  I would take this opportunity to point out that while the Wildling and Vale Mountain clans steal their women, they don't practice the first night.  This leads me down The Pact rabbit hole where these cultures are truly 1st Men and this first night thing came much later.  What would the Others do with disabled children?  Would they only take boys?  Fascinating.  Snowgate = Bastardgate is a good possibility.  Nice one, @CamiloRP.

The Others is where I disconnect.  It seems to me that intermingling with another species would do more damage than good, so perhaps the Others are simply converting humans in some way.  I still fail to see how that helps humanity.  Sacrifice is an agreement of sorts.  Again, the Wildlings don't seem to do this, other than Craster, who is Wildling by location exclusively.  His children are inbred, which is a terrible thing according to the Wildlings proper.  He practices first night on his own daughters and sacrifices the male children.  Does this mean the Others are female?   Are Caster's sons in some way a better offering because they are inbred?  Is this eugenics designed on some smaller scale to eliminate humanity, again, potentially part of The Pact?

While I freely admit I have no idea what the Others actually are or want, I do know that they act aggressively and with decided hostility against humans.  They need their asses kicked.  

I think the situation with Craster's sons shows how truly desperate The Others are, Craster seems to be the one making the terms, as he's not loosing anything, he would get rid of the boys anyway, and The Other's get only boys, while I assume they would need both, since Westerosi culture has a lot of references to The Other's taking people, but no one ever refers to them taking just men. Also The Others get inbred babies, which are far more likely to be weak or sickly, and die young. This would be like the mob going to offer protection to a restaurant owner and leaving contempt without any money and the scraps the costumers leave.

The exception being if Craster has any sort of magical powers, we have no clues about it but his mother was a Freefolk woman from Whitetree, I believe the women are the ones who pass the 'magical' genes, and Whitetree seems to be a village in which The Old Gods are strong, and inbreeding does cause for some genetics traits to become more prominent, so, we have no clue for it but it's certainly a possibility.

 

I would recommend for you to read In The House Of The Worm, it's an excellent short story in which The Other archetype is somewhat present, and it illuminates some of GRRM's thoughts on most of what we're talking about.

[Curled Finger]

7 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

I think the situation with Craster's sons shows how truly desperate The Others are, Craster seems to be the one making the terms, as he's not loosing anything, he would get rid of the boys anyway, and The Other's get only boys, while I assume they would need both, since Westerosi culture has a lot of references to The Other's taking people, but no one ever refers to them taking just men. Also The Others get inbred babies, which are far more likely to be weak or sickly, and die young. This would be like the mob going to offer protection to a restaurant owner and leaving contempt without any money and the scraps the costumers leave.

The exception being if Craster has any sort of magical powers, we have no clues about it but his mother was a Freefolk woman from Whitetree, I believe the women are the ones who pass the 'magical' genes, and Whitetree seems to be a village in which The Old Gods are strong, and inbreeding does cause for some genetics traits to become more prominent, so, we have no clue for it but it's certainly a possibility.

 

I would recommend for you to read In The House Of The Worm, it's an excellent short story in which The Other archetype is somewhat present, and it illuminates some of GRRM's thoughts on most of what we're talking about.

So what do the Others actually do with the babies?  Eat them?  Plant them in Others gel?  Toss them into wrestling rinks?  There has to be a point to the sacrifice.  I totally get the sending sons to the Wall.  It is a necessary defense of the realm against the Others.  What does sacrificing to the Others actually do for anyone?  Particularly the sacrifices?  

There is a thin thread here that I am simply not fully imagining.  We've got beautiful Lannisters and a dwarf of questionable paternity.  We've got beautiful perfect physical specimens of Lannister in Cersei's children, though we know Joffrey was mad (which may or may not have been nature over nurture).  We've got beautiful inbred Targs for whom the deformed are born and soon dead.  This pure bloodline thing is a real thing in this place.   I just don't know what.  Craster isn't really that far off from the ruling houses of Westeros in practice of incest.  I envision the Nights Queen and her children with a human man and chaos abounds in the north.   But we don't seem to have any female Others?  There has to be transformation from human to Other in these abandoned children with no Others blood.  

 

[CamiloRP]

19 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

So what do the Others actually do with the babies?  Eat them?  Plant them in Others gel?  Toss them into wrestling rinks?  There has to be a point to the sacrifice.  I totally get the sending sons to the Wall.  It is a necessary defense of the realm against the Others.  What does sacrificing to the Others actually do for anyone?  Particularly the sacrifices?  

I think they raised them as one of their own and use them for breeding.

 

Quote

There is a thin thread here that I am simply not fully imagining.  We've got beautiful Lannisters and a dwarf of questionable paternity.  We've got beautiful perfect physical specimens of Lannister in Cersei's children, though we know Joffrey was mad (which may or may not have been nature over nurture).  We've got beautiful inbred Targs for whom the deformed are born and soon dead.  This pure bloodline thing is a real thing in this place.   I just don't know what.  Craster isn't really that far off from the ruling houses of Westeros in practice of incest.  I envision the Nights Queen and her children with a human man and chaos abounds in the north.   But we don't seem to have any female Others?  There has to be transformation from human to Other in these abandoned children with no Others blood.  

Craster is not that far off from Westeros nobility when talking about incest, but he is when talking about inbreeding, the Targs are the closest thing to him, mating amongst siblings, but he has children with his daughters, and then with his daughters's daughters, and so on, the resulting babies are mostly Craster genetically, at this point it's almost like having children with yourself.

[Curled Finger]

5 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

I think they raised them as one of their own and use them for breeding.

Craster is not that far off from Westeros nobility when talking about incest, but he is when talking about inbreeding, the Targs are the closest thing to him, mating amongst siblings, but he has children with his daughters, and then with his daughters's daughters, and so on, the resulting babies are mostly Craster genetically, at this point it's almost like having children with yourself.

I get breeding if there are female Others, but we don't know that there are any.  Love that bolded bit.

[CamiloRP]

14 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

I get breeding if there are female Others, but we don't know that there are any.  Love that bolded bit.

I assume there are, we have no reason to suspect there aren't

[Lady Dacey]

I like this thread. I want to come back with more time to spare later. While I'm not sold in one gigantic battle for the dawn that gets the whole of the seven kingdoms fighting together against a common enemy, I'm fairly sure we will have a humans x others showdown at some point, with all those northerns and the riverlands folk fighting on the side of the living. That battle may never be fully acknowledge soth of the Neck, though. Anyway, this idea that the others just need some undertanding is... not very consonant with what GRRM has been saying. This is a nice quote:

Quote

It’s kind of ironic because I started writing “Game of Thrones” all the way back in 1991, long before anybody was talking about climate change. But there is — in a very broad sense — there’s a certain parallel there. And the people in Westeros are fighting their individual battles over power and status and wealth. And those are so distracting them that they’re ignoring the threat of “winter is coming,” which has the potential to destroy all of them and to destroy their world. And there is a great parallel there to, I think, what I see this planet doing here, where we’re fighting our own battles. We’re fighting over issues, important issues, mind you — foreign policy, domestic policy, civil rights, social responsibility, social justice. All of these things are important. But while we’re tearing ourselves apart over this and expending so much energy, there exists this threat of climate change, which, to my mind, is conclusively proved by most of the data and 99.9 percent of the scientific community. And it really has the potential to destroy our world. And we’re ignoring that while we worry about the next election and issues that people are concerned about, like jobs. Jobs are a very important issue, of course. All of these things are important issues. But none of them are important if, like, we’re dead and our cities are under the ocean. So really, climate change should be the number one priority for any politician who is capable of looking past the next election. But unfortunately, there are only a handful of those. We spend 10 times as much energy and thought and debate in the media discussing whether or not N.F.L. players should stand for the national anthem than this threat that’s going to destroy our world.

from this interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/t-magazine/george-rr-martin-qanda-game-of-thrones.html

The author is allowing the allegory of the others as climate change. Can it get less human than that? 

This is a very fun thread: 

 

[Rosetta Stone]

9 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

I was reading throw the Winterfell Huis Clos (an amazing series of essays I haven't yet finnished, but you can find here)  and an idea came to mind, I was gonna post it in a recent topic by @Alyn Oakenfist about the importance of R+L=J (which you can find here) but midway through it I realized it was going to be a big comment and no one was gonna read it, so here it goes:

Also, it's a pretty crackpot theory and when thinking about the stories endgame won't be my first choice, but still, I kinda like it.

 

For starters let's set some ideas that aren't necessarily of my own making:

 

1. The Black Gate and child sacrifice

Tho I had already thought about some of these things, this can be found in The Winterfer Huis Clos (more specifically here) which I whole heartedly recommend if you want a more thorough analysis. But the basic idea that I want to point out is the following: the Black Gate was created as a mean to give bastards born of the first night to The Others. 

The evidence for this includes the fact that the gate looks like a weirwood, which opens it's mouth to let people through, this looks like the one who's going through is being consumed by a god, which is perfect imagery for religious sacrifice.

 

(ASOS Chapter 56, Bran IV)

 

There's also the fact that throwing unwanted children down wells is a common practice in Westeros, and the Black Gate is under the Nightfort's well.

 

(ASOS Chapter 56, Bran IV)

 

(ADWD Chapter 14, Tyrion IV)

 

There's also Alyssane, we know she did a few things:

She caused the Nightfort to be closed down.

(From the wiki I con't have a digital copy of Fire And Blood nor TWOIAF)

 

She gave the New Gift  to the watch (which likely used to belong to the houses Roose claims still practice the lord's right to the first knight).

(wiki)

 

And the Watch renamed Snowgate (bastard gate?) to Queen's Gate in her honor.

(ASOS Chapter 41, Jon V)

 

So, could all of these things be related? could she have given this lands to The Watch to prevent the lord's right? could she have closed down TNF to stop the sacrifices?

 

There's also the fact that the houses Old Nan suspects of being the house to which the Night's King belonged to and the houses Roose 'acuses' of practicing the lord's right line up pretty well.

(ASOS Chapter 56, Bran IV)

 

(ADWD Chapter 31, Reek III)

 

 

2. The Motives Of Th Others

One thing I find important to think about when discussing The Others is thinking about their motives and considering them 'human' (not in a biological way, but in an empathic way) GRRM never writes about supernatural all evil things that wan't to kill humanity just cause, in fact, he critics that way of thinking in my favorite book of his "The Armageddon Rag", and "In The House Of The Worms" is about two genetically distinct groups of people considering each other all-evil supernatural monsters while their salvation would be interbreeding with each other to survive the climate. 

So, what are The Other's motives then? Why do they take babies?

(ASOS Chapter 26, Jon III)

In my opinion is the same reason why the Freefolk don't mate with clan kin: inbreeding. Inbreeding comes with a bunch of genetic problems, and taking people with a different gene pool would help fix some of that, so The Others have inbreeding problems and have to turn to kidnapping babies from another species rather than just another family. These problems with inbreeding are stated in other GRRM works (mainly Dark, Dark Were The Tunnels), and in those works the solution was contact with another group of humans.

That would also mean The Others are human, at least partially, as GRRM has criticized Star Trek for having improbable breading between two different races (human and vulcan, like he says here at around 04:24) and in The Dying Of The Light he categorizes humans so genetically modified that they can no longer breed with base human as "notmen".

 

3. R+L

So, what does this have to do with R+L=J? Well, regardless if Jon is Lyanna's son or not, Jon is still a bastard, a northern bastard, meaning that, if the above is true, in another time he would have been sent as an offering to the other side of The Wall. But he's not just a Northerner, he would also be part Valiryan, and Valiryans, like The Others, are genetically distinct people, tho their genetics are tied to fire rather than ice. So, would the addition of Valiryan genes (another group that suffers from inbreeding, but in an 'opposite direction') help The Others in a significant way?

If Jon is The Prince Who Was Promised, who was he promised to? Was it to The Others as a part of a peace pact?

I have always doubted the notion of a battle for dawn (as @Curled Finger can definitely tell you) and Jon's story seems to lead him away from war, he starts thinking the people in Castle Black to be his enemies, but he turns them into his friends, then he thinks the Freefolk are his enemies, but he learns they are kin (via the Bael The Bard story)

(ACOK Chapter 53, Jon VII)

Shortly after, he starts viewing them as allies and friends, could his solution to The Others be the same? Could he realize they are humans and seal a peace with a few marriage pacts, including himself, to help with The Other's inbreeding problem? 

That would explain the importance of both Stark genes (sacrifice to The Others) and Valiryan genes (enough of a different genetical background to help with the problems) while also the importance of his bastardy (he wouldn't be a sacrifice otherwise) and would explain in what way the prince was promised.

It isn't that complicated.  I saw a program from Preston Jacobs.  There he theorized the same as you.  The gate was designed as a method to dispose of unwanted babies.  We know Craster was doing the same thing in the present day.  He was giving his sons to the Others.  We have also never heard of a female Other besides the Nights Queen.  Yet the Others are somehow still around.  So the male bastards are converted.  What does any bastard want from his parents?  Birthright, love, and recognition.  The Others want to claim the lands of their fathers.  I have even come across one theory where the Children were able to save some of these children and sacrificed them to the Weirwoods. 

Allysanne's ban would end child sacrifices to the Others but not sacrifices altogether.  The babies have to be disposed of one way or another.  No right to the first night lessened the number of unwanted nobleman's bastards.  But the well did not dry up.  Horny lords are horny lords.  She made it very inconvenient but the north is very savage.  Even they would have found another socially acceptable way to get rid of these babies.  Perhaps they just left them out to die in the snows. 

 

[CamiloRP]

53 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

I like this thread. I want to come back with more time to spare later.

Thanks!

 

54 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

While I'm not sold in one gigantic battle for the dawn that gets the whole of the seven kingdoms fighting together against a common enemy, I'm fairly sure we will have a humans x others showdown at some point, with all those northerns and the riverlands folk fighting on the side of the living. That battle may never be fully acknowledge soth of the Neck, though. 

For sure there will be some sort of battle or battles, but I too doubt that everything is gonna be resolved by an epic, glorious battles. never thought about it not being believed south of The Neck, but it seems really likely.

 

56 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

Anyway, this idea that the others just need some undertanding is... not very consonant with what GRRM has been saying. This is a nice quote:

from this interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/t-magazine/george-rr-martin-qanda-game-of-thrones.html

The author is allowing the allegory of the others as climate change. Can it get less human than that? 

I consider those ideas constantly, and are the only thing that makes me doubt The Others not being 'humane', but to me it still seems pretty un-GRRM like to have all evil inhuman monsters roaming around, to my knowledge he has never written such characters. Also, the problems The Others bring are undeniably bad for humanity, and solving those problems should be a priority, regardless if The Others as a whole are truly evil or not. If the solution is a marriage pact, or war, or anything, we still need the noble class to stop their petty squabbles and try to find that solution.

 

1 hour ago, Lady Dacey said:

This is a very fun thread: 

 

Looks promising, will read!

[CamiloRP]

5 minutes ago, Rosetta Stone said:

It isn't that complicated.  I saw a program from Preston Jacobs.  There he theorized the same as you.  The gate was designed as a method to dispose of unwanted babies.  We know Craster was doing the same thing in the present day.  He was giving his sons to the Others.  We have also never heard of a female Other besides the Nights Queen.  Yet the Others are somehow still around.  So the male bastards are converted.  What does any bastard want from his parents?  Birthright, love, and recognition.  The Others want to claim the lands of their fathers.  I have even come across one theory where the Children were able to save some of these children and sacrificed them to the Weirwoods. 

Allysanne's ban would end child sacrifices to the Others but not sacrifices altogether.  The babies have to be disposed of one way or another.  No right to the first night lessened the number of unwanted nobleman's bastards.  But the well did not dry up.  Horny lords are horny lords.  She made it very inconvenient but the north is very savage.  Even they would have found another socially acceptable way to get rid of these babies.  Perhaps they just left them out to die in the snows. 

The bold part... that's fucking interesting.

I do not see some sort of Other turning ritual or whatever as fitting the series tho, it's too fantastical. And we don't know if we've seen female Others or not, maybe we've just seen women, but even if we hadn't there can be the simple explanation that women are not warriors traditionally.

To me the simple explanation for why The Others take people is the same one as the freefolk, they take them so they can put babies in them or make them put babies in and Other.

[Lady Dacey]

44 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

un-GRRM like to have all evil inhuman monsters roaming around

And I agree! 

There lies the beauty of the plutonian others. I have never considered them to be evil, just alien. Sweetsunray had the same inkling and she came up with lots and lots of evidence for instect-like hive-minded Others. Within this line of thinking they aren't evil at all, they're beyond good and evil. They're not "out to destroy us", they're just doing their thing with utter disregard of human existance (or life as we know it, as a matter of fact). In that, they are again a great parallel to climate change or other "natural" events, in that they are not good or bad or evil, they just are. There's no morality to it. The morality rests with humankind: what do we do when facing such threat? What is our response? What is the response of each of these characters when exposed to the threat of the Others? 

 

[Lady Dacey]

10 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

the fact that the gate looks like a weirwood, which opens it's mouth to let people through, this looks like the one who's going through is being consumed by a god, which is perfect imagery for religious sacrifice.

Thats good enough inference, I believe, but to take it as evidence for "human bastard baby sacrifices" seems too big a leap for me. 

The first night is a terrible dreadful thing but I'm not sold in that it was shameful at all to make use of such 'lordly rights' back then. Having bastards is a fact of life, I can't see most people actually committing infanticed all that often. 

[CamiloRP]

17 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

And I agree! 

There lies the beauty of the plutonian others. I have never considered them to be evil, just alien. Sweetsunray had the same inkling and she came up with lots and lots of evidence for instect-like hive-minded Others. Within this line of thinking they aren't evil at all, they're beyond good and evil. They're not "out to destroy us", they're just doing their thing with utter disregard of human existance (or life as we know it, as a matter of fact). In that, they are again a great parallel to climate change or other "natural" events, in that they are not good or bad or evil, they just are. There's no morality to it. The morality rests with humankind: what do we do when facing such threat? What is our response? What is the response of each of these characters when exposed to the threat of the Others? 

 

ohhhhhh I actually think that of the COTF.

 

8 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

Thats good enough inference, I believe, but to take it as evidence for "human bastard baby sacrifices" seems too big a leap for me. 

The first night is a terrible dreadful thing but I'm not sold in that it was shameful at all to make use of such 'lordly rights' back then. Having bastards is a fact of life, I can't see most people actually committing infanticed all that often. 

It seems to be common to sacrifice unwanted babies down wells tho.

[Lady Dacey]

1 minute ago, CamiloRP said:

ohhhhhh I actually think that of the COTF.

Why? The children made a pact with the first men, they allegedly helped the first hero, Leaf seems genuinely afraid of the Others and the wights. The Children don't strike me as amoral entities disregarding the people's existence. They interact with animals and skinchange. The Others... they have dead animals. 

[Lady Dacey]

46 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

It seems to be common to sacrifice unwanted babies down wells tho.

Were it common GRRM would have showed it to us quite a few times and through different POVs. Or so I think. A side comment by Tyrion does not convince me it's common practice to kill babies. Many readers tent do consider kids "mouths to feed", but I think this is a very modern notion not to really applicable to westeros, especially among the smallfolk. In a feudal society nuturing a baby through infancy has an amazing payoff: another able bodied person to work the fields and share the chores. This is the point Tyrion is making in his comment, a dwarf might have been killed as a baby if born from less well-off people (though even that's debatable, given Penny, Groat, their father, the dward sparrow Brienne encounters at the Stinking Goose, and the all the dwarfs that have their heads hacked off to present to Cersei). Killing a bastard just because of basdardy seems unreasonable, no matter how prejudiced westerosi are of bastards. 

[CamiloRP]

1 hour ago, Lady Dacey said:

Why? The children made a pact with the first men, they allegedly helped the first hero, Leaf seems genuinely afraid of the Others and the wights. The Children don't strike me as amoral entities disregarding the people's existence. They interact with animals and skinchange. The Others... they have dead animals. 

Not the a moral part, but the ebings with the alien mindset and the hive mind part.

The Others don't seem to be able to enter the Children's cave and we see no evidence of them attacking them, I don't see why the Children would want to help the humans beat them when the children have no reason to dislike them and every reason to dislike humans: they cut down their trees, they massacred them, they made a pact that was way better for the humans, and still broke it, they took Westeros from them, etc.

Also, they seem to be using Bran and turning him against men. And if they are the ones wending the visions? why? as a warning? that makes little sense, as the people who receive the visions think they can't be changed, to me the visions are send to cause conformity for the future they represent or to cause the visions to be fulfilled by people trying to avoid them, like the Maggy The Frog prophecy and the younger more beautiful queen

[CamiloRP]

55 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

Were it common GRRM would have showed it to us quite a few times and through different POVs. Or so I think. A side comment by Tyrion does not convince me it's common practice to kill babies. Many modern readers tent do consider kids "mouths to feed", but I think this is a very modern notion to really applicable to westeros, especially among the smallfolk. In a feudal society nuturing a baby through infancy has an amazing payoff: another able bodied person to work the fields and share the chores. This is the point Tyrion is making in his comment, a dwarf might have been killed as a baby if born from less well-off people (though even that's debatable, given Penny, Groat, their father, the aparece desde Brienne encounters at the Stinking Goose, and the all the dwarfs that have their heads hacked off to present to Cersei). Killing a bastard just because of basdardy seems unreasonable, no matter how prejudiced westerosi are of bastards. 

But Tyrion isn't the only one who mentions it, it is brought up many times, and Roose says he thought about throwing Ramsay down a well when he was a baby.