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Those giant spiders


Aebram

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ASOIAF contains three references to the Others using, or perhaps riding, some kind of giant spiders. Two of them are old folk tales or legends, but Samwell does find accounts of them in the old records at Castle Black. I have just two thoughts about them.

 * Three references are too many to be just a scary plot decoration. They must be real, and I expect we'll see them in TWOW.

 * I think I know why the Wall is 700 feet high ...

 

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If they do exist, it would be interesting to find out if they are biological giant spiders tamed by the Others, or are they the same sort of "life" as the Others, like seemingly made of ice. Add Ice Dragons to that list as well. 

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6 hours ago, Eliscat said:

Water striders or crabbs. I’m hoping something freaky, and scary, like a Lovecraft musical pageant on ice! 

Yes, that's a possibility. Before my OP, I did a little research, and I found a Reddit thread where someone suggested that the "spiders" might actually be crabs. We've already had a mention in the books of spider crabs, when Davos eats the sisters stew in ADWD.

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9 hours ago, Aebram said:

ASOIAF contains three references to the Others using, or perhaps riding, some kind of giant spiders. Two of them are old folk tales or legends, but Samwell does find accounts of them in the old records at Castle Black. I have just two thoughts about them.

 * Three references are too many to be just a scary plot decoration. They must be real, and I expect we'll see them in TWOW.

 * I think I know why the Wall is 700 feet high ...

 

Ice spiders and unicorns.  Expect to see them. 

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1 hour ago, Quoth the raven, said:

Ice spiders and unicorns.  Expect to see them. 

Ice spiders and unicorns oh my!

oh man...I never thought I’d say this...I think I’m a little more excited about unicorns then mysterious ice monsters. Curse you Martin! Only he could do such a dastardly bewitching of my love for monsters. My inner child is kicking my elder self’s butt.

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2 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Imagine being on top of the wall, and you see a horde of ice spiders at full speed. Climbing the wall, and heading directly towards you.

Bowen Marsh's brilliant plan of just staying on top of the wall is starting to sound kinda dumb.

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3 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Imagine being on top of the wall, and you see a horde of ice spiders at full speed. Climbing the wall, and heading directly towards you.

Tyrion's way is best. Piss them off. Literally. Pissing off the edge of the world. 

 

The itsy bitsy spider

Went up the water spout

Down came the rain and

Washed the spider out

Out came the sun

And dried up all the rain

Now the itsy bitsy spider

Went up the spout again

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1 hour ago, Nathan Stark said:

Bowen Marsh's brilliant plan of just staying on top of the wall is starting to sound kinda dumb.

Starting to sound kinda dumb!?!? Understatement of the week. And you considered it brilliant at first?

Disclaimer In case you were very subtly being sarcastic, ignore this post 

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2 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Starting to sound kinda dumb!?!? Understatement of the week. And you considered it brilliant at first?

Disclaimer In case you were very subtly being sarcastic, ignore this post 

I was in fact being sarcastic. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/26/2020 at 1:11 PM, Aebram said:

 * I think I know why the Wall is 700 feet high ...

That's a really good reason to build high like that.

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. 

This is in Jon XII, ADwD. It's not exactly ice spiders, but the painted image is very unsettling.

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2 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

That's a really good reason to build high like that.

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. 

This is in Jon XII, ADwD. It's not exactly ice spiders, but the painted image is very unsettling.

Is it ever.  Especially if the WW were literally riding ice spiders (foemen) at one time.   Or could it mean the "ice spiders" are ridden the same way the wights are ridden or controlled.  Ice spider is just another name for ice wight?

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1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Is it ever.  Especially if the WW were literally riding ice spiders (foemen) at one time.   Or could it mean the "ice spiders" are ridden the same way the wights are ridden or controlled.  Ice spider is just another name for ice wight?

At the attack on the FotF, there was an undead bear. The Other who went after Sam, Grenn and Small Paul was riding an undead horse. So it seems like the spiders themselves wouldn't be wights but rather something that is similar to the Others in their makeup.

We have two types of animals that are mentioned with the word ice to them, and that's ice dragons and the ice spiders. And we have a tiny more on ice dragons than we do on ice spiders. I think the spiders and the dragons will be similar. 

Quote

Of all the queer and fabulous denizens of the Shivering Sea, however, the greatest are the ice dragons. These colossal beasts, many times larger than the dragons of Valyria, are said to be made of living ice, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky. Whereas common dragons breathe flame, ice dragons supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat.
Sailors from half a hundred nations have glimpsed these great beasts over the centuries, so mayhaps there is some truth behind the tales. Archmaester Margate has suggested that many legends of the north -- freezing mists, ice ships, Cannibal Bay, and the like -- can be explained as distorted reports of ice dragon activity. Though an amusing notion, and not without a certain elegance, this remains the purest conjecture. As ice dragons supposedly melt when slain, no actual proof of their existence has ever been found. (The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond The Free Cities: The Shivering Sea)

 

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