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Theory: The nature of the Others, the Long Night, and a bunch of other stuff


Ring3r

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I’m borrowing many elements from many long-standing theories here and I’m not sure who actually originated many of them (so credit to them, not trying to steal any thunder), but the spark that kicked it off was Joe Magician’s video “Source of the Night King’s Powers.”  His linking of GRRM’s previous use of jewels, stones and psychic ability spun my little brain up on how the Others work, and I just went from there.

I THINK most of this makes sense and doesn’t directly conflict with any existing canon, but I’m sure plenty of veteran forum members will be able to poke some holes in it (go for it.)  I do pretty firmly believe that the Pact actually occurred DURING the Long Night and that many events in the deep histories are likely out of order.  Given those events’ pre-historical nature I think moving the events around a bit is fair game.

I’ve definitely made some large jumps of logic to try and fill in missing pieces or explain conflicting information (particularly the nature of the Winterfell Crypts and the nature of the Horn of Winter), so that’s probably the weakest part of this, IMO.  I know it’s definitely a different interpretation.  I’ve tried to incorporate as much of the mythology as possible, finding ways to make the pre-history and current events rhyme, while taking creative license due to the fact that the legends have passed through so much time.

I’ve also made efforts to align things with some version of how the final season of the TV show concluded, since some of those events were confirmed to have come from GRRM. 

Lastly – I’m writing this like a story, so if my wording sounds like I’m sure of these things, or telling people that they are true - I’m not.  It’s not intended to disprove anyone elses theories.  It’s just my personal head-canon, and I hope somebody enjoys it, or sees something in it that fleshes something out for them.  And I hope people correct some of it and flesh it out for me too.  Here goes – it’s a long read.

The Nature of the Others

The Others are a weapon originally developed to combat humans by the Children of the Forest in the Dawn Age, and they serve as the physical manifestation of the Children of the Forest’s ancestors.  In effect, they ARE the weirwoods.  A powerful human warg is needed for the ritual, wherein they are sacrificed against a weirwood tree by pushing a shard of obsidian into their chest.  Obsidian serves as both an amplifier of their innate warg talents, and a channeling stone, allowing the spirits of CotF greenseers previously absorbed into that particular weirwood to transfer into the body.  Though each Other is composed of multiple spirits, it has a single consciousness, as the greenseer spirits have all become one with the weirwood they inhabited.  The stronger the Warg sacrificed, the more greenseer spirits can be absorbed by that individual Other.  The magic renders the resulting Other immune to any implement except that which originally created it: Obsidian, or things created using obsidian.  Fire cannot harm them. 

Each Other’s ability to raise the dead and control bodies functions due to the numerous greenseer spirits inhabiting it.  The Other’s body continues to function so long as at least one greenseer is still in it – all the other spirits leave the Other to control wights, when needed.  The reason killing an Other causes all of the wights it is controlling to die is that the channeling stone contained in the Other’s body is deactivated, dispelling (and permanently killing) the spirits linked to the Other.  Wights retain a small portion of their memories, depending on how freshly they were raised, in the same way that Bran can feel Hodor in the back of his mind when warging him.  To control huge numbers of wights, an Other does not have to have hundreds of spirits in it – we know from Varamir SixSkins that a powerful warg can control or influence multiple bodies at once.  The number of absorbed greenseers in Always Winter is likely similar to what we see in the caves where Bran finds Bloodraven.  Many…but not thousands.

The Long Night (Highly Speculative)

The specifics and the order of events during the Age of Legends and Heroes are corrupted by time, but this is my best guess at the general sequence:  The First Men, a race from Essos, outside the Great Empire, emigrated into Westeros and encountered the Children, and they were friendly for a time.  The Children gave gifts of greensight and warging to the first-men, and possibly the first-men assisted the Children in their war with the giants in return, or simply engaged in trade.  Over time, the burgeoning human civilization began expanding their territory, which eventually lead to war between Children and men, who now had knowledge of the Children’s magic, and of the weirwood connection to their ancestors.  The men began killing and cutting down weirwoods.  This is when the Children began kidnapping human wargs to turn into Others.  A separate faction of Children, aware of the danger an out-of-control force of Others would pose, sacrificed huge numbers to break the Arm of Dorn, not to prevent more humans from emigrating, but to try and prevent the Others’ spread.

As the human population of westeros was systematically wiped out and the Others spread South (this process likely took, as stated in the text, a generation), the faction of the Children who wished for peace used their abilities to call out to any remaining human greenseers.  A great first-men leader was visited by visions and traveled into Other territory; he nearly died finding the friendly Children on the God’s Eye.  Isolated by water, the children had communed with the weirwood grove and convinced the trees for support, being gifted with visions of how to stop the Others.  The Pact was negotiated (it had to be conducted at God’s Eye because the Pact also included the spirits of that grove.)  The man obtained the information on the weaknesses of the Others, and was later known as the Last Hero.  He and a group of Children traveled far East, to the Empire (which was in the middle of collapse due to the vast changes in weather the Others were responsible for), and after he made them aware of how to stop the threat that had been dramatically altering the world, they began developing weapons to counter the Others.  The Bloodstone Emperor (extremely unpopular due to overseeing the Empire during its decline) attempted to create dragonsteel, but failed repeatedly.  Finally, he realized that the blade had to be imbued with magic, not simply forged with obsidian as the carbon element, and his sister-wife, the Amathyst Empress, willingly allowed herself to be sacrificed, imbuing the blade with her power.  The willing sacrifice resulted in a fiery, white glowing blade.  (After its power was spent, it was passed down, and is now known as Dawn.)  The presence of Children in the envoy which convinced him to act lead to the legends of his taking a tiger-lady to wife and the woman with a monkey’s tail saving the world.

The war raged on and the Empire grew desperate; they began resorting to mass blood sacrifice of their own citizens, which eventually corrupted and poisoned the Empire’s capital (Stygai).  These blood sacrifices were used to create large numbers of dragonsteel weapons and dragons (which had already existed and had been used by the royal family for generations)  The remaining royal family and Emperor imbued themselves with dragon blood to become riders, and served as the vanguard of the Empire’s military.  This combination of dragons and large numbers of Empire foot-soldiers now equipped with dragonsteel was able to push the Others back, eventually all the way to the North of Westeros.  The Bloodstone Emperor, aided by the Last Hero, died in a final duel with the most powerful Other, who also perished.  Because Bloodstone died, he was unable to complete the mission of uniting the powers of Ice and Fire.  It would forshadow the idea that only a hero born of both elements can truly end things.

With the weirwood trees in Children territory almost entirely depleted of spirits and the last Other killed, the hostile children vanished into the far North.  The remains of the Empire’s forces enlisted the Last Hero and friendly Children to use magic to cordon-off the area the hostile Children had retreated to, creating a magical barrier cutting off the far north from the rest of the world.  The Wall was built.  The Last Hero’s family was given the task of guarding this barrier, and founded the Watch.  The Horn of Winter was created to control the barrier, with the ability to activate and deactivate the magic wards of the Wall, and any other locations it was used to ward.  The Night’s Watch tradition of 1, 2 or 3 horn blasts is descended from the usage of this horn.  1 for friends (turn the wards off to allow magical warriors North/South), 2 for enemies (turn the wards back on), 3 for Others (summoning the Warg Kings of Stark, giants of earth magic, to fight.)

At some point, a female sorceress who worshipped the Old Gods approached a Commander of the Watch and convinced him that he was the new King of Winter.  His story is essentially an ice mirror of Stannis and Mellisandre.  This sorceress similarly saw visions, though they were sent to her by the hostile Children.  Through her, the hostile Children learned of the Horn of Winter. The relatives of the traitor Commander eventually overthrew him with the help of Joramun, who blew the Horn of Winter to alert the proto-Stark armies to attack with their direwolves and other magic.  These proto-Starks then restored the Watch and returned to Winterfell permanently, collapsing the tunnels under the weirwood tree to cut off access to the deserted Children’s city located there.  The strange feeling of being watched one has when entering those crypts is actually due to the spirits still contained in the weirwood and its root system – they were not part of the pact and are not friendly.  The ancient Starks knew this, and practiced blood sacrifice at their weirwood in an attempt to appease it, and used the Horn of Winter to seal the spirits within the tree.  The crypt serves to cover up the parts of the underground city where the children are absorbed into the roots. The Starks knew that the hostile Children now knew of the Horn of Winter, and that the return of the Others was an eventuality.  This is where the Stark words “The North Remembers, “There Must Always be a Stark in Winterfell” and “Winter is Coming” originate from.

From there, stories of the Long Night and Age of Legends/Heroes become even more confused.  The surviving Dragon Riders likely moved to a source of fire magic, the 14 flames, and founded what would become Valyria.  The remaining minor royalty of the Great Empire probably founded Yi Ti.  The leaders of the conventional military stayed on Battle Isle and established Old Town.  The children of the Bloodstone Emperor kept his sword and moved to Starfall.  The first men predominantly stayed in northern Westeros.  All of them developed their own myths based on the portions of the battle that they were privy to.  Aware that human wargs had been the source of the Others, much of the world grew to vilify anyone with these abilities, though they eventually forgot why.

The reason the Others took so many thousands of years to return is that the hostile Children trapped in the far North had to repopulate, and very few of their number were greenseers, capable of joining the weirwoods.  There is a frozen, corrupt grove of weirwoods in Always Winter, and the hostile Children spent thousands of years “powering up” those trees in anticipation of creating Others again. 

A surviving friendly faction of Children established their underground city beneath the huge, lone weirwood where Bran finds them.  Their goal was to spy on and track the hostile Children.  The Horn of Winter was secretly transported here on the orders of the Last Hero (Brandon the Builder) or one of his descendants.  It was used to establish the wards protecting that location.

The Second Long Night

After imbuing enough greenseer spirits into the Heart of Winter grove, the hostile Children began to hunt for likely warg candidates to capture and turn.  They know that the First Men line has a much higher concentration of wargs, and they know the wargs tend to share physical characteristics, with the most powerful being Starks (credit to Joe Magician again for much of this part!)  The hostile Children carefully targeted men, kidnapping wargs, and then using the resulting Others to capture even more powerful wargs.  This is why Ser Waymar Royce was targeted by a large group of Others – for capture.  (HIGHLY likely they did the same to Benjen, and I think he WAS a warg, so Jon may have to kill his uncle.)  Once they sensed Royce did not have abilities, they dispatched him.  Craster worships them, giving them his male children in case one of them manifests warg abilities. He also gathers info on the Watch for them.

Both factions of children began searching for a Champion, a human to serve their purposes.  Using the power of the weirwoods, they psychically reached out to the most powerful warg candidates that they could sense.  The friendly Children found and drew Brynden Rivers and Bran Stark.  The hostile Children found and manipulated Euron Greyjoy (and probably earlier candidates….the founder of the House of Black and White perhaps?  And, another shoutout to Joe Magician and I’m adding this part several days after initially writing this post...almost certainly Larys Strong)

The friendly Children’s goal: Imbue an extremely powerful greenseer with the knowledge needed to allow the defeat of the Others.  Essentially, they wish to create another Last Hero.  They have the same prophecies about Azor Ahai/The Prince that was Promised, and wish Bran to be their emissary to him/her.

The hostile Children’s goal: Draw an extremely powerful warg and get him to breach the wall using the Horn of Winter.  Again using the Horn, they would deactivate the ward around Bloodraven’s weirwood and destroy the friendly Children and their tree full of “traitors.”  From there, they would attack Winterfell, with the goal of deactivating the Crypt’s ward and using Winterfell’s weirwood and it’s never-used-up store of angry spirits to turn and fully power their champion.  Their next goal is to reach the God’s Eye, which contains the grove of weirwood trees full of greenseer spirits who agreed to and upheld the Pact with men.  The hostile Children/weirwoods want to destroy this grove of weirwoods, eliminating the last friendly Children and the knowledge of how to defeat the Others, and exact revenge on the world of men.

Incidentally, the reason Sam was targeted North of the Wall while he was with Gilly was because the Others knew he had the Horn of Winter.  Coldhands had been given it to bury for John to find, and the others Observed Jon discovering it.  This is the event that triggered the massive attack at the Fist of the First Men, the first instance of open conflict by the Others.  They tracked it from there using the memories of the recently wighted Brothers – all the way to Sam.  They really want that horn.

Character Roles/Predictions

Euron is the new Great Other (a term that eventually took on God-like connotations, but not a God.)  He’s received visions from the hostile Children, tricking him into doing everything possible to increase his magical power, with the promise of becoming the God of what’s left afterwards.  He’s traveled to Old Town to engage in massive blood-sacrifice and to retrieve the Horn of Winter, with visions from the hostile Children as his guide.  He’s already got the Dragon Horn, which could force a dragon to serve Euron once he is turned.  He is their chosen Champion, who will lower the Wall’s defenses and become the most powerful Other ever.

Bran is the Last Hero, chosen to pass key knowledge to the forces of men.  It’s possible his strong warging abilities could be used to distract the new Great Other at a key point, possibly a warg mind-fight at the Winterfell weirwood, giving Jon the opportunity to prevail.  As the last savior of mankind and possessor of deep knowledge, he’d actually make an excellent ruler once the dust settles, particularly if he plays a key role in destroying Euron.

Dany is the Prince(ss) that was Promised.  In despair after her unintentional immolation of Kings Landing (buried wildfire), she will sacrifice her life willingly to Jon Snow, her spirit re-awakening Dawn, which Jon will need to get at some point.  She is the Last Dragon, fire made flesh, and a sword bearing her spirit can not only destroy Others, but dispel the corruption of the weirwoods in Always Winter.  This is why, at the end of the series, Jon’s final mission will be to travel North.

Jon is the Song of Ice and Fire – equal parts of both elements.  He was born to bring an end to the cycle and re-unite the elements.  He is a warg with the ability to wield Lightbringer.  His story will end north of the Wall, with the cleansing of Always Winter.  Lightbringer will nullify the power there, bringing balance to the world and restoring the seasons – but he’s literally and figuratively already dead. By the end, he will have killed his love (love is the death of duty and duty is the death of love.)

Other Theories and Questions

I’m not sure what to make of all the prophecies from the fire side of things.  I suppose it could be explained as easily as “powerful houses have magical blood.”  Prophecies seem to come from every powerful bloodline.  I’m just not sure what causes dragon dreams.  I suppose it’s the same as greensight, but fire based…but there doesn’t seem to be any actual entity behind them, the way it seems the children are behind weirwood visions.  I suppose you could argue that Dany is being directed by a shadowbinder from Asshai (Quaith), but she’s just one individual.

I already hinted at it, but were the hostile Children somehow responsible for the Doom of Valyria? It’s heavily implied that the Faceless Men were responsible for the Doom…is it possible their founder was reached out to in the same way as Euron?  Perhaps with the dangling carrot of “protect Braavos from Valyria by destroying the dragons?”  Face-changing certainly seems a similar form of magic to warging, and a powerful Stark warg (Arya) takes to it quite well.  Weirwood and ebony are clearly important elements to the faceless men, and the House of Black and White have a statue dedicated to the Lion of Night, which is pretty obviously the “big bad” for the GEotD.

I’ve theorized the two most corrupted areas on Planetos (Always Winter and Asshai/Stygai) as resulting from the mass-use of blood magic/sacrifice.  I think that holds, but there’s SO much meteor/comet imagery in the story that I think there must be some element of that too.  Possibly both the Children and the Bloodstone Emperor called down a meteor (a comet, which are composed of ice, and a meteor, which are fiery) to their lands, and they fueled the resultant magic?  A comet corrupted the weirwoods in Always Winter, and a fire meteor was called down to Stygai?  But if that’s so, then wouldn’t Jon need a tool, the inverse of Lightbringer, to nullify Stygai as well?  Or maybe Jon’s destruction of the final Other and the death of Dany, the Last Dragon, will cleans both locations?  Haven’t figured that out yet.

Hightower, and Battle Isle:  I think this was the beach head for the initial Great Empire invasion of Westeros, to defeat the Others.  The weakness of the Others to water made Battle Isle an excellent location for a command post, and the area is a natural port.  It also makes sense strategically.  If the GEotD simply sailed across the narrow sea and landed in the middle of westeros, they’d have enemies to the North and South and be forced to fight a two-front war.  Landing in what would become Dorne would force their foot-soldiers to travel through the desert and mountains.  The Hightower port side-steps those issues.

I suspect the Five Forts actually formed a coastal defense as an extension of the Mountains of the Morn.  Their location makes no sense unless Crowfood’s Daughter is correct about large swaths of Essos having previously been inland seas.  The Forts could have been sea-facing watch posts  The names and geography of many parts of Essos suggest they were once underwater: The Dry Deep and Dothraki Sea are both giant, open swaths of flat, empty land, much like the Great Plains in the US (which are indeed the remains of a real-world inland sea)

I also think the Others’ glaciation of the Heart of Winter was an intentional tactic – they were trying to lower the seas far enough to create land bridges to the rest of the world.  Trapping sea-ice in glaciers is a real-world thing that does indeed lower sea levels.  This likely decimated cultures to the East, with mass changes in weather, and the destruction of major inland seas that were likely the source of food for huge numbers of people.  Some of these changes are described in the legends of the peoples of Essos (As far as I can tell, Essos’ experience of the Long Night involved dramatic changes in weather and famine, but there doesn’t seem to have been an actual invasion.)  Again, I think Crowfood’s Daughter is right and the Dothraki Sea literally used to be an actual sea.  Perhaps this is why the Dothraki hate the sea – they descend from sea-farers and their entire culture was destroyed when the sea “betrayed” them by vanishing? 

Sea level change would also imply that Asshai, or at least part of it, was underwater prior to the Long Night.  Maybe Asshai was the location of trade between the GEotD Capitol and the mythical underwater civilization that there are so many hints at? The word Empire implies the joining of multiple Kingdoms, so it would make sense for there to be hybrid locations like this.  If Asshai was half and half submerged/exposed (prior to the Long Night) and joined the two cultures, it would also partially explain how Asshai was feeding itself back then.  The one piece of official GRRM-approved art we have of Asshai (the piece by Rene Aigner) certainly appears to show a city that basically continues INTO the sea, rather than simply being a port.

Conclusion

Hopefully I haven't re-treaded TOO much territory here.  I've tried to tie things together in a way that respects GRRM's habit of echoes; themes repeating themselves.  And again, credit to anyone I missed who originated something that I used here, I honestly don't know where some of the theories came from.  Commence poking holes, I'm sure there's a ton.

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Wow, long post, and welcome to the forum! Reading theories on the nature of the Others and how things might have transpired in the past is always interesting. Thanks for your take on this mysterious aspect of the story. 

I'm neutral on some points you make, like some inferences and don't agree with some key points. The assumption that the white walkers are skinchangers who control their wights by this means, for example, is primarily based on further assumptions - that Night's King was a Stark and that because of the apparent parallel of baby sacrifices, Craster must be a Stark. Further that the Others accept his baby boys because of their alleged "Stark blood." I probably belong to a minority that has severe doubts about this scenario. Why?The white walkers and their wights share a very prominent feature: their strikingly blue star eyes. Why do they turn the eyes of their victims blue in undeath? A popular expletive in the 7K is "the Others take your eyes." What do  they take them for?  I think the eyes are the means by which the walkers channel magic to control the undead. It is a means of soul-binding similar to Melisandre's glamouring and soul-binding magic. Mel uses rubies, the Others use symbolic blue sapphires.  

Though I can see obsidian playing a role in the transformation of man to other, I lean towards the idea that they are the souls of dreamers who never learnt to fly - those dreamers Bran sees impaled on icy spikes in his waking dream. Those who never flew are those who never opened their third eye. They would be akin to Jojen, a dreamer with greensight but without the ability to skinchange or greesee. Symeon Star-Eyes may be a hint: he was blind and replaced his eyes with blue star-sapphires to be able to see. 

Most theories do not attempt to incorporate Old Nan's tales about the Others. Why did they hunt maidens through the forest or feed children to their dead servants? What of the ferocious giants she talks about who contrast the giants Jon meets beyond the Wall? Could Ser Gregor be a clue - a diabolical character who rapes, kills a mother and her baby and "takes" Oberyn's eyes? What of his transformation by Qyburn? I'm missing most of these elements in most theories. I can however envisage opposing factions within the community of the CotF at the heart of the drama, particularly prior to and during the Long Night. 

 Essos and the Bloodstone Emperor: the latter and his role are definitely up for debate. He is said to have ushered in the Long Night suggesting his actions played a role in banishing the day. So unless the legends are totally mixed up I would not equate his killing his sister, the Amethyst Empress, with the Nissa Nissa legend. Rather, I think her demise was necessary because she embodied an endless long summer that needed to end, a summer that caused severe dehydration and desertification of Essos (there are a number of references to a long summer in the narrative). 

What I do like is the idea that Dawn or a Lightbringer sword might be "spent" after use and need recharging. 

Anyway, seeing as we've been fed mere bits and pieces regarding this issue, speculation is necessary if we want to make progress :)

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Hey, thanks :) It was originally way shorter but I spent 5 days waiting for my registration to be approved and I kept coming back to the word document I had and seeing things that I thought might connect, so it turned into a bit of a monster post.

For the "eye stealing" and "Others take your eyes" I did actually think about that but didn't include anything on it because the post was already so ridiculously long.  I sort of looked at what Bran is doing to Hodor....he's using him as his eyes, in a way.  Stealing his body and seeing through his eyes.  I figured it might be similar with the Others....the blueness I just kind of figured was a manifestation of the type of magic that was being used....if both Others and Wights are inhabited by these spirits maybe that's why the eyes are the same? 

Good point about Nan's stories.  I'm conflicted on those.  She's right about a lot of stuff but I think some of it is just scary ghost stories for Bran, with a nugget of truth in the middle, I think.  The hunting maidens through the forest thing seems like a pretty on-the-nose echo of Ramsay Bolton and his woman-hunts with dogs.  Feeding children to their servants....I guess could echo Craster.  Ser Gregor is another echo of that for sure, like you say.

Your idea for Nissa Nissa is interesting too.  If her death was the end of summer....is it possible that maybe she was the original female Other, and the story of Lightbringer (a flaming sword) has been mixed with how Nissa Nissa was turned to end summer...maybe with an obsidian (frozen fire) dagger to the heart?  Like, the creation of Dragonsteel (and maybe dragons) mirrored the creation of Others and things got mixed together in the retelling?  Maybe the Long Night was a battle between Westeros (CotF and human Wargs/Greenseers) and the GeotD (fire mages and dragon dreamers)?  Maybe SHE is what's buried beneath the Winterfell crypts?

There's so many directions things could go depending on interpretation...

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On 10/1/2022 at 2:10 AM, Ring3r said:

or the "eye stealing" and "Others take your eyes" I did actually think about that but didn't include anything on it because the post was already so ridiculously long.

This business of "taking eyes" is probably very important. The Weeper is one prominent member of  the Freefolk who "takes eyes." He gouges out the eyes of his victims, also highlighted by the three members of the NW returned beheaded and without their eyes. Can't say I've figured it out. However, we have an interesting observation regarding Gregor Clegane:

Quote

The bloodstained messenger shook his head. “Our outriders had been vanishing. Marq Piper’s work, we thought. The ones who did come back had seen nothing.” “A man who sees nothing has no use for his eyes,” the Mountain declared. “Cut them out and give them to your next outrider. Tell him you hope that four eyes might see better than two … and if not, the man after him will have six.”

 

So, according to Gregor, four eyes see better than two and six better than four. Eyes are "passed on" to the next man. This to me alludes to Ser Gregor as a symbolic white walker who sees through the eyes of his many wights. I've already commented on  Ser Gregor's transformation as a possible clue to the making of a white walker. 

Regarding the notion that the white walkers may embody the spirits of dreamers unable to fly ...

On 9/30/2022 at 9:13 PM, Evolett said:

I lean towards the idea that they are the souls of dreamers who never learnt to fly - those dreamers Bran sees impaled on icy spikes in his waking dream.

 The white walkers are "Walkers." The choice of name suggests they are earthbound. They do not or cannot "fly."  "Flying" in Martinspeak means opening the third eye and being able to engage in the "higher" mysteries of warging, skinchanging, greenseeing. Notice the wordplay. In different ways, both greenseers and dragonriders are gifted with being able to "fly." But the white walkers are not. They are by no means skinchangers, imo. Perhaps they would like to be... to find release from their earthbound status, from their frozen hell. 

I find your idea of obsidian being a channeling resourse for spirits interesting. Do you have any further thoughts on how this might work? 

In any case, Ser Gregor as a possible clue to the origin or making of an Other reminds me of a mention in the World Book:

Quote

But other sources dispute this, stating that their (the CotF) greatest foes were the giants, as hinted at in tales told in the North, and as possibly proved by Maester Kennet in the study of a barrow  near the Long Lake—a giant’s burial with obsidian arrowheads found amidst the extant ribs. tWoIaF

 So, some sources speculate  that the giants were the greatest foes of the CotF and that the bones of a giant were found with obsidian arrowheads amidst the ribs. This could be hinting at the use of obsidian in the transformation of giants to Others .... remember also Old Nan's tales about the giants which may seem unconnected at face value but are probably important to deciphering the mystery. I'm also inclined to suspect the author of referencing God's creation of Eve from the ribs of Adam. The point here is creation through obsidian as you also suggest and as we saw on the show. Perhaps that scene in the show reflects the truth of the matter. Right after that quote in the World Book comes the story of Gendel and Gorne which has its origins in a conflict between the giants and the CotF. Personally, I suspect the CotF turned their adversaries, the giants, into tools to fight the FM.  

 

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3 hours ago, Evolett said:

I find your idea of obsidian being a channeling resourse for spirits interesting. Do you have any further thoughts on how this might work?

 

That part was the original spark that got me writing this whole thing and then trying to figure out what the implications of that would be and how those implications might look if passed down through millenia, and how the more current events might echo them.

It came from Joe Magician's video "Source of the Night King’s Powers."  Not sure if I'm allowed to link directly to videos here, but if you look up that title on Youtube you'll see it.

Essentially, Magician notes that GRRM uses similar themes in many of his previous novels and one of them is the use of a stone or crystal to amplify psychic powers.  Specifically, the story Night Rider centers on this idea and involves a powerful dead psychic trapped in a crystal, using their powers to manifest visions and control bodies....powers which are extremely similar to what the Others do.

From there I noted how key the weirwoods seem to be and the descriptions from Bloodraven's cave, where many greenseer children are embedded in the roots.  I figured that if a greenseer warged into the tree for such a long period, they'd essentially be part of the tree and lose themselves.  The trees are the Children's Gods and were directly attacked by men - that would probably piss them off, in whatever way a tree gets mad.  Finding a way to take the spirit(s) of the tree and put them into a body that was immune to your enemy's strengths would be a heck of a way to manifest a "god."

Another thing I left out of my original post due to length was what I thought of Bran's vision of all the dead dreamers impaled on spikes of ice.  At that point, Bran was not good at interpreting his visions at all, and I assumed that this imagery was a representation of how the Others were made - they were greenseers/wargs who were impaled using ice-magic.  Obsidian is called "frozen fire."  So I figured that was the connection, and was the way GRRM was re-using the theme that Joe Magician noted from Nightriders.

So...angry tree spirits, Children who worship them, previous themes of stones and crystals containing spirits and psychic forces...and the apparent requirement for blood sacrifice to perform magic in Planetos.

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That was a great read, thanks.

I think my speculation was running in similar terrain as yours, though it veered into a slightly different direction once I started soaking up GRRM's non-ASOIAF works and saw some potential parallels. Still, I do think we have a fair amount of overlap in our working theories.

Feel free to read some of my topic posts and see what you think. Welcome!

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  • 5 months later...
On 9/29/2022 at 6:12 PM, Ring3r said:

A powerful human warg is needed for the ritual, wherein they are sacrificed against a weirwood tree by pushing a shard of obsidian into their chest.  Obsidian serves as both an amplifier of their innate warg talents, and a channeling stone, allowing the spirits of CotF greenseers previously absorbed into that particular weirwood to transfer into the body.

What if instead of obsidian in a man we have a man in obsidian? The “great rock” in the prologue of AGOT is an obsidian black mirror with the white shadow of Waymar’s reflection. The children were watching.

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On 9/29/2022 at 6:12 PM, Ring3r said:

I’m not sure what to make of all the prophecies from the fire side of things.  I suppose it could be explained as easily as “powerful houses have magical blood.”  Prophecies seem to come from every powerful bloodline.  I’m just not sure what causes dragon dreams.  I suppose it’s the same as greensight, but fire based…but there doesn’t seem to be any actual entity behind them, the way it seems the children are behind weirwood visions.  I suppose you could argue that Dany is being directed by a shadowbinder from Asshai (Quaith), but she’s just one individual.

Blood is super associated with fire, but it's also super associated with weirwoods which aren't very associated with fire. R'hllor and his servants vs. the Great Other (Euron) is being set-up, but the (white and red) weirwood vs. (black and blue) ebony/weirwood paste vs. shade of the evening binary is not nearly as strong. There is definitely a lot missing on the fire side, other than Dany and her dragons, Melisandre and her magic, and Quaithe and Marwyn using glass candles. But if Dany is the princess who was promised, where do Mel and Stannis fit in? You have Bran being advised by Bloodraven and Dany by Quaithe, but where does Moqorro and Marwyn fit in? It's unbalanced.

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