The Wall, the Watch and a heresy

[FanTasy]

Just as aside without flinging at anybody, least of all Northman, I do find it interesting how people on this board sometimes perceive the White Walkers and ascribe all sorts of traits and characteristics which simply aren't there. The language is one and I've also seen them described as unnaturally tall, superhumanly strong, etc etc. Why?

Exactly! Clever writing, if it was meant to redherring us. The Others ... sounds a lot like what we mean as we say alien ... The first one we encounter in the prologue carries a sword where no human metal was used to forge the blade. Does that make them unnatural or superhuman?

They seem to be easily killed if you stick 'm with the pointy end of something made of obsidian.

Are they human? Probably not - or not anymore.

Dead humans don't melt easily just after been killed. But maybe it is just their glamour that melts.

[Black Crow]

Dead humans don't melt easily just after been killed. But maybe it is just their glamour that melts.

Again, this is why I'm not keen on their being an "alien" race. What Sam did was break a spell, not slay a living creature - and if it was a spell someone must have conjured it.

[Free Northman]

Just as aside without flinging at anybody, least of all Northman, I do find it interesting how people on this board sometimes perceive the White Walkers and ascribe all sorts of traits and characteristics which simply aren't there. The language is one and I've also seen them described as unnaturally tall, superhumanly strong, etc etc. Why?

OK. Let's take a step back and refocus, taking into consideration everything that's been said.

I cannot exclude any possibility for the origin of the Others. I therefore cannot exclude that they were originally men - although the sorcery needed to transform them into liquid crystal beings that dissolve into a pool of water after being killed must have been transformative on an entirely new scale to what we've seen up to now.

I cannot entirely exclude the possibility that they may have some relation to the Children, in the distant past.

But here's where I cannot agree:

If the Children WERE involved in the creation of the Others, then I can only conceive it to be the work of a different faction of the Children than the ones that are training Bran. It is conceivable that when the Pact was signed, not all factions of the Children were happy to forgive the First Men for their destruction and conquest of all that the Children held dear. And it is therefore conceivable that the faction that continued to hate the First Men retreated to the Far North, where they proceeded to use their magic to forge a terrible spell of vengeance in the form of the ensorcelled and corrupted men turned into Others and their impact on the Seasons.

So, yes, in such a case, the Others may be connected to the Children in such a scenario.

But here's the important difference: I believe that the style, symbolism, meaning, emotion, and everything else that Martin has interwoven into his story up to now don't allow for a scenario where Bran and the Starks will have a rude awakening only to realise their gods are actually the side of evil, and that their noble heritage is actually a farce.

I believe that the Children are geniune in their desire to help Bran, and to therefore help men by extension. At least, the Children that signed the Pact are. As for some evil branch of the Children that may be behind the Others - well, they could conceivably exist. But then the Children on the side of the Starks are as opposed to this evil faction as the heroes of the story are.

[Black Crow]

But here's where I cannot agree:

... I believe that the style, symbolism, meaning, emotion, and everything else that Martin has interwoven into his story up to now don't allow for a scenario where Bran and the Starks will have a rude awakening only to realise their gods are actually the side of evil, and that their noble heritage is actually a farce.

I believe that the Children are geniune in their desire to help Bran, and to therefore help men by extension. At least, the Children that signed the Pact are. As for some evil branch of the Children that may be behind the Others - well, they could conceivably exist. But then the Children on the side of the Starks are as opposed to this evil faction as the heroes of the story are.

To a large extent I don't disagree with you. Where I think there is a problem is how we are seeing the Others.

As I've mentioned above the actual appearance and behaviour of the White Walkers as set down in the text seems to bear little relationship to what a lot of people on the board seem to think they actually look and behave. Similarly there's a lot of reaction to Bran in the caves with people treating his embracing of the darkness with the Dark side and horror that he is going to turn evil - granted there are others who vehemently deny it and insist that the Children are cuddly tree-huggers, but the point remains.

The Children are not evil and there is not an evil faction, but they are different and more importantly they are on the other side so far as Mel and the followers of R'hllor are concerned. The fact that the White Walkers appear to be ruthless killers does not mean that they cannot possibly be linked to the Children, life is morally ambiguous and good men sometimes have to do bad things. Mel serves the Lord of Light and supposedly represents the good guys in the fight against the darkness, yet is a ruthless killer who burns people alive at the drop of a hat. In Westeros we see good men and bad men; further east Dany wants to do good but is prepared to use the murderous Dothraki to achieve it.

GRRM has always said there is no black and white, but layers of grey. Yes, ultimately the Children will probably turn out to be the good guys, and (literally) having a dark side and employing the White Walkers doesn't invalidate that.

I'd still like to know exactly what Bloodraven and Mance are up to in all this though.

[Free Northman]

To a large extent I don't disagree with you. Where I think there is a problem is how we are seeing the Others.

As I've mentioned above the actual appearance and behaviour of the White Walkers as set down in the text seems to bear little relationship to what a lot of people on the board seem to think they actually look and behave. Similarly there's a lot of reaction to Bran in the caves with people treating his embracing of the darkness with the Dark side and horror that he is going to turn evil - granted there are others who vehemently deny it and insist that the Children are cuddly tree-huggers, but the point remains.

The Children are not evil and there is not an evil faction, but they are different and more importantly they are on the other side so far as Mel and the followers of R'hllor are concerned. The fact that the White Walkers appear to be ruthless killers does not mean that they cannot possibly be linked to the Children, life is morally ambiguous and good men sometimes have to do bad things. Mel serves the Lord of Light and supposedly represents the good guys in the fight against the darkness, yet is a ruthless killer who burns people alive at the drop of a hat. In Westeros we see good men and bad men; further east Dany wants to do good but is prepared to use the murderous Dothraki to achieve it.

GRRM has always said there is no black and white, but layers of grey. Yes, ultimately the Children will probably turn out to be the good guys, and (literally) having a dark side and employing the White Walkers doesn't invalidate that.

I'd still like to know exactly what Bloodraven and Mance are up to in all this though.

But surely you also get the feeling that somewhere all of what you are saying doesn't tie up. It doesn't fit.

The Wall STRENGTHENS Mel's magic, it doesn't weaken it. This from Mel's own, private POV.

The Starks and the First Men of the North are closer to the Children than the southerners, and yet it is the Starks and the northmen more than anyone else who have been supporting the Wall and the attempts to keep the Others out of the Realm.

The gods of the North are the gods of the Children, and yet the men who worship these gods are the ones that do more to resist the Others than anyone else.

What you're saying is that these men have been the greatest fools of all and have been duped for 8000 years. Tyrion was right to laugh at them. And the servants of the Seven were right to mock them for worshipping trees.

Don't you see? Attacking the basic premise that the Others are the real enemy, and that the Starks are the only ones who have held true to this fundamental truth, through their words: "Winter is coming", in the face of mockery and derision from southron jackanapes for all this time, by attacking the virtue of this basic principle, you are effectively undermining the heroic nature of the entire Stark cause.

You are reducing them to just another petty House squabbling over the spoils of the Seven Kingdoms, when everything Stark supporters cling to requires them to be somehow greater than the rest, to be serving a cause greater and older than anyone else can comprehend.

It is because of the nullification of this basic theme that I cannot agree with your theory.

[Black Crow]

Not at all, and I think Old Nan's interrupted story is the key to it all.

There's broad agreement that the Children were the original inhabitants of Westeros until the First Men turned up. They went to war and the Children were driven north but eventually made a pact with the First Men and thereafter they lived in harmony until the Andals turned up - but why?

Here's Old Nan's story:

“The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”

“Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only . . . ”

Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

“Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest"

Now there's no mention of the Pact, instead she goes on to relate:

"Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—”

At this point, Maester Luwin comes in and we never find out what happened next, but... given that there's no mention of the Pact, no mention of the Children and the First Men fighting side by side, what if the real story is that the First Men dispossesed the Children who retaliated by working their magic to bring the Long Winter and the White Walkers and that what the Last Hero did was patch up the peace treaty, the Pact, in return for their calling off their dogs?

[Free Northman]

I think what I'm struggling with is how you tie the individual aspects of your theory together. If what you say in your latest post is potentially the truth, then the Pact was in fact signed AFTER the Long Night, in fact, it was the signing of the Pact that brought the Long Night to an end.

But then what about your claims that Bloodraven and the Children are using Bran, and actually turning him to some sinister purpose of theirs? Must the Pact now be re-signed?

And if the Pact ended the Long Night, then what the heck do the Red Priests, Rhllor and the Dragons have to do with this story? I thought you said the Others and the Wall were created by the Children to oppose Rhllor. Now you're saying that they were used simply to fight the First Men. And that the Pact ended their threat, not some confrontation with the Red Priests.

I'm not quite seeing how it all fits together.

Besides, the timeline that Martin gave us puts the Long night as happening thousands of years after the signing of the Pact. I suppose you dispute this?

[Black Crow]

GRRM said through Sam that the timelines (supposedly going back a whole 8,000 years) are mince. What I'm trying to do is make sense of it all.

Broadly speaking (and yes the Devil's always in the detail), I believe that the Children initiated the Long Winter and that the Pact was the peace treaty between them.

Azor Ahai and the Wall came later - after the discovery of steel, of which I think the forging of Lightbringer story is the legend.

[hotweaselsoup]

Sorry, I must have missed your posts about this. :-(

On the other hand, I'm glad, as it means at least one other person thinks it's possible. :-)

And, yes, definitely something along the lines you mention in your post. I haven't been able to connect many of the dots yet, but it's, roughly, something like this:

CotF (and other species that are 'dwindling' now) were the native inhabitants. First Men arrive, CotF and First Men fight for some time and eventually make a pact. CotF teach/show many things to the First Men - including magic, or at least some 'magic related' stuff, spells, etc - and the First Men (operative word is 'man/men), greedy power-hungry destructive as only 'men' can be, misuse it somehow and all hell breaks loose, so to speak.

The details are still very fuzzy, though. I have to play with the whole thing in my head a bit more...

I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm still wondering what conditions brought about the Pact in the first place, and why - if your theory is true - the Children would give their powers to a race that was formerly trying to wipe them out?

The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze.[<----Children losing the war, possibly on the brink of extermination at the hands of the First Men. What happens here? To lead to ---->] Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers* amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye.

I can see the "wisdom of both races prevailing" if some sort of stalemate had been reached, if two evenly-matched sides had simply tired of the endless bloodshed and warring and decided to call a truce. But, if the accounts are to be believed, the two sides were not evenly matched: the First Men were winning because of their superior numbers, weapons and strength. So how did the purportedly losing side get the winning side to meet with them on their turf (the Gods Eye), in front of their gods (the weirwoods), and agree to lay down their arms and give them half of Westeros?

My theory is that the Children threatened to use a "weapon of mass destruction" against the First Men - threatened to break the Neck, maybe, or cause(d) some other terrible flood or cataclysm - and this threat is what led to the the Pact. Moreover, perhaps the Children demanded hostages - a son from each king, say - to ensure that the First Men honored the peace?

It does seem that the crannogmen formed an especially close alliance with the Children - maybe through marriage? - and it seems that they have been given or learned some magic as a result. Changing earth to water with a word, and making castles appear and disappear, for example - so I could be wrong in thinking that the Children would not trust their former enemies enough to give them their powers.

Not sure what happened later to bring on the Long Night, but I feel like promises were broken.

* what the heck is a wood dancer?

[tze]

Is it possible that the Others and the Children are the same species but not the same ethnic group? Kind of like how the First Men and the Andals are all "human" but diverge wildly in culture, religion, and worldview?

The story of the Last Hero has him looking for the Children in "the dead lands" after the Others have ravaged the world. According to that story, the Children didn't enter the fight against the Others until the very end, after their help was sought. But there's also a story about the Pact between the Children and the First Men, a Pact sealed on the Isle of Faces in the Riverlands, which stopped their mutual fighting and began the Age of Heroes, an Age that lasted until the Long Night. Yet Andal figures like Lann the Clever supposedly existed during the Age of Heroes, where the Andals supposedly didn't come to Westeros until 2,000 years after the end of the Long Night, which itself supposedly ended the Age of Heroes. The Andals came to Westeros and warred against the First Men and the Children, and written records of interactions between men and Children exist at the Wall, written in the Andals' "common tongue". The Others haven't appeared since then in "common tongue" records, but that makes sense---if they're only in the far North, beyond the Wall, they exist in a place that doesn't have written records in the Common Tongue at all.

If the Others and the Children are two subsets of the same species, it could clear up a lot of confusion. It explains why the Children were found in "the dead lands", which sounds like Others-controlled territory, yet were supposedly willing and able to fight the Others---before the coming of the First Men, the Children might have been warring against the Others themselves, the same way that various human ethnic groups fight against each other throughout the world; yet if the Children were the same species as the Others, it might explain why the Children were living safely in Others-controlled territory while the latter fought the humans. It would explain why the Children were accustomed to fighting with dragonglass daggers---they were already using them to fight the Others, long before men came to Westeros, in the same manner that the First Men and the Andals fought each other.

I'm starting to wonder if it was really the coming of the Andals that instigated the Long Night. That would explain how we have Andal heroes existing during an Age that supposedly stopped long before the Andals claim to have arrived. Because everything we know about the Long Night in Westeros comes from records written by septons, it would explain why the Andals' arrival is pushed back on the "official" timeline---at the time, the representatives of the Faith wouldn't have wanted it known that they warred against the Others and lost, if in fact the Children's aid was necessary for victory.

What gods do the Others worship? Twenty bucks says they keep the Old Gods. Remember how the Others reacted to Waymar Royce back in AGOT? They butchered him like a hog. The one that "fought" him seemed, to Will, to be taunting Royce, and when the rest of the watchers move in, Will notes their laughter. And what do we know about the Royces? They're ancient Andal nobility. As others have noted elsewhere, it's striking how the Others seem unwilling to attack the Free Folk in force; they pick off outriders, they send wights, but if they're really so keen on genocide, why haven't they just attacked in force? Maybe they don't see the Old Gods-worshiping Free Folk as their true enemy---rather, maybe they see them as something that's in the way of the Others attacking their true enemy, the worshipers of the Seven who have begun making inroads into Old Gods-controlled territories. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that Ned Stark married his wife in a sept instead of a godswood, installed a sept in Winterfell, raised his kids to keep the Seven (and the Old Gods, yes, but the Seven too), and the Others then began moving south.

.

[Free Northman]

Lann the Clever is not an Andal Hero. He is a First Man hero. The Lannisters were Andal adventurers who explored the Westerlands after the initial Andal invasion had conquered the Vale.

In the Westerlands they encountered some existing First Men petty kingdoms. Remember, there were hundreds of First Men kings at this time. One of these kingdoms was obviously ruled by the descendants of Lann the Clever. And the Andal adventurers then intermarried with these First Men, and in order to gain noble status, these common adventurers took on the family name of the petty First Men clan they married into/conquered, and thus gained "royal" legitimacy through their claim of descent from Lann the clever.

Thus were born the Lannisters.

Remember that the purest line of Andal nobility are the Arryns of the Vale. The Lannisters were mere common adventurers. So they had to find other ways to rise into the nobility.

[kissdbyfire]

I think I have only mentioned it briefly in this thread (and I know I am useless in getting my point across when writing so no wonder!), but it was what I implied when writing about the Others not being some external force, just like the red priest (the ones with slave origin like Melisande and maybe Moqorro) are not. I think they are just people that have used sorcery to ascend to life without death, literaly becoming the element they are worshipping, ice and fire respectively.

It's not you, it's me. Sometimes I just skip to the last post when loggin in and end up missing a lot of interesting things.

The bolded part is exactly what I think. That has been elaborated in another thread but never gained any momentum on this forum :D

I am also very glad to have found someone else thinking like this!

And today, as I was thinking about this, something else occurred to me... 'If' the First Men did something like that, it would make sense for them to keep repeating 'the north remembers', as in 'the north remembers its own mistakes' and won't let them happen again (hopefully).

:-)

[Eyron]

Mel has been on top of the Wall, and through the tunnel beneath it to the north side several times. She rode to the top of the Wall with Jon to meet with Stannis. This was when Stannis did his devil on the mountaintop routine and offered Winterfell to Jon the first time.

ETA: Ghost's reaction at the Fist has had me head-scratching as well. The only thing I can think of is that the direwolves seem to have the ability to sense impending danger, so maybe Ghost didn't want to go into the ringfort because he sensed the upcoming battle with the wights?

Because Melisandre has been on the Wall as you say, and even gets stronger from it's magic as it seems, I think that the magic infused in it is actually not preventing "fire magic-people" to pass.

That, and the the fact that the Wall was built before dragons (or Andals) arrived, makes me think that the Wall was never meant to stop dragons or R'hllor people, just the White Walkers and perhaps humans from the realm.

Either the magic in the Wall is exclusively working against the White Walkers (ice magic) or the magic has failed already.

All of this makes me wonder if the White Walkers actually are not stopped by it's magic either. We have seen no attempts yet... But we know that the wights could rise even if they were kept in the ice storerooms beneath the Wall so... Perhaps the magic is not working any more?

Hmmm. I tend to disagree on this point.

The description we got of the Other in the Prologue of GoT was truly of some very alien being, speaking a kind of clicking, grating language not even remotely similar to the Old Tongue - the language of the First Men.

This thing also wasn't some artificial construct, as it appeared to display a mocking type of humor at Waymar Royce's attempts to fight it.

I believe that like the Dragons, the Others are non-human life forms from another world/dimension or whatever the magical terminology may be.

They aren't simply ancient evil humans corrupted by cold magic. There are such creatures, though. They are called the Wights. Formerly humans, now reanimated by cold magic.

The reasons I think the Others are basically human is because they in so many ways resemble Melisandre,

Melisandre has fiery red eyes - the Others have fiery blue eyes (as well as the wights, Varamyr saw a blue flame in the eye socket of a wight)

She has a fire inside - The Others seem to have ice inside (they melt when stabbed with obsidian)

She is glamored - The Others seem to use glamor to be difficult to spot

She speaks in a strange tongue (remember when she spoke a word that sounded differently to all listeners) - The Others speak a strange tongue.

Where she goes she melts ice and snow and radiates heat - Where the Others go they freeze things

And we know that Melisandre was human before she went through the "change" and that Craster's wives call the Others Craster's sons (they could of course be wrong).

The Un's seem to be the opposite of the wights to me.

Essentially this is what I've been arguing all along; that the White Walkers were once men, but have been transformed/glamoured call it what you will by sorcery of some kind, hence the involvement of Craster's sons and their fiery counterpart in Mel and Moqorro. I reckon they were thus transformed to do the Children's dirty work for them on account of the latter dwindling in number and looking too cute to be scary. There is also, as I've pointed out a connection in their stealth armour.

I also have to disagree though with Northman on the language:

"The Other said something in a language that Will did not know, his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking."

There's tone there, but if it had been Ned Stark speaking we would have read it that he was merciless, not something from the Planet Zog. As for the language that Will did not know... in the context it could easily be the Old Tongue

Pretty much what I think, except for the bolded part... :)

[tze]

Lann the Clever is not an Andal Hero. He is a First Man hero.

My general point isn't about Lann the Clever, it's about things like this:

Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night’s King

The tales set down by the septons associate heroes from the Age of Heroes with knights and knightly ideals, which I suppose makes sense, from their perspective, since they wouldn't have wanted to overly-glorify the cultures of the First Men whom the Andals defeated. I'm not really making a point about the Lannisters, I'm making a point about the nature of the knowledge that the Westerosi currently have about the Long Night: the commonly held assumption is that it's inherently incorrect because it was set down so many years after the Long Night, but I'm speculating that perhaps the nature of those inaccuracies isn't what we've been assuming: rather than saying that the Andals came milennia after the Long Night ended, maybe the Andals' coming actually caused the Long Night, and the reason the Age of Heroes has people in it whose cultures don't scream "first men" isn't necessarily an Andal invention, but rather, a reflection of the idea that maybe some of them were Andals because the Andals came earlier than they claim. I'm not saying that Brandon the Builder was an Andal or anything like that. I'm saying that maybe the ancient history of the clash between the Andals and the First Men and the Children is more intimately tied to the Others and the Long Night than the septons would have us believe.

Remember that the purest line of Andal nobility are the Arryns of the Vale.

Exactly. The Andals initially landed in the Vale and drove out the First Men. The Royces are Andal nobility, and due to their status as the second most powerful family in the Vale, are probably almost as purely Andal as the Arryns, despite that famous bronze armor of theirs. In any case, it's indisputable that the Royces keep the Seven, and I do think it could be relevant that the Others seemed so viciously pissed at poor Waymar Royce, and reacted to him in a way that we haven't seen them react to anyone else.

[Armand Gargalen]

Very interesting thread. I think Black Crow raises good points about the Children and their relationship with the First Men, about the Pact and the Long Night, but I disagree with his idea of the Wall being a protection for the Others and the Children against the Men or R´hollor or whatever.

My theory is that the Children of old were quite adept at Magic, but pursued a balance of the elements of nature, as the Reeds oath to Bran seems to suggest. As Hotweaselsoup suggests, I think that the Children either threatened with unleashing the power of the Others (Ice) over the First Men (who came with bronze, which happens to be forged through fire), or helped the Men a way to protect themselves from the Others. One way of the others, through the Pact the COT forced the First Men to respect the balance of nature, probably in exchange for sharing part of their magical powers with them. I think this theory links beautifully with Old Nan story that Black Crow kindly and wisely brought up.

Probably was as a result of the Pact that the Wall was built, with the Children teaching the Men how to protect themselves from the element of Ice. As an interesting side note, I have the vague sensation that the great tower of Oldtown and the order of the Maesters are a "fire" version of the Wall and the Night Watch...

The "official" history of Westeros greatly suggest, at least for me, that the arrivals of the Andals and their Seven (again with weapons forged of iron... fire), was the incident that forced the Children and other "magical" creatures such as direwolves, giants, etc... beyond the Wall, in a no go area for the followers of the Fire. The COT were able at least to protect themselves against the Others, maybe invoking ancient pacts, and in the North the First Men remembered the Pact, but this was forgotten everywhere else...

I don´t know if the existent timelines support my next point, but I will make a leap of faith here. I think that the story of AA is somehow linked to a victory of Fire over Ice (that is forced to retreat beyond the Wall) and the ascendancy of Valyria. For generations most of the world had a Long Summer, with the Freehold reigning supreme almost everywhere.

But then, the Doom came, and the predominance of the element of Fire started to vanish... the seasons became unstable, magic gradually dissipated, the winters started growing longer... Unbent by its old enemy, Ice is coming.... but Fire has not being dead, only sleeping, and it is coming back fast (Dany and her Dragons, R´hollor...). I think that the stage is set for a millennia old cosmic battle, one that will lay the world waste, unless the COT can find a way to remind the Men of the Pact and therefore restore balance...

Don´t take me wrong, I don´t think the COT are a bunch of tree hugging friendly folks, as everyone else in Martinworld they must have committed terrible acts in order to survive in such harsh conditions.

I think there is enough evidence in the text to at least make my ideas plausible, and loads of, for me, veiled suggestions about them.

[kissdbyfire]

Essentially this is what I've been arguing all along; that the White Walkers were once men, but have been transformed/glamoured call it what you will by sorcery of some kind, hence the involvement of Craster's sons and their fiery counterpart in Mel and Moqorro. I reckon they were thus transformed to do the Children's dirty work for them on account of the latter dwindling in number and looking too cute to be scary. There is also, as I've pointed out a connection in their stealth armour.

I agree with the first part of your post, but disagree with what you say about the WW/Others doing the CotF's 'dirty work'. I think it's much more likely that Men tried to use whatever ( magic/spells ) they learned from the CotF, and it blew in their faces.

I also have to disagree though with Northman on the language:

"The Other said something in a language that Will did not know, his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking."

There's tone there, but if it had been Ned Stark speaking we would have read it that he was merciless, not something from the Planet Zog. As for the language that Will did not know... in the context it could easily be the Old Tongue

What if this tongue they speak is the tongue of the CotF, not the Old Tongue of First Men? Leaf tells Bran that humans (normal ones, as I read it) can't speak it. Or did I get this wrong? Will check now...

[Black Crow]

Don't you see? Attacking the basic premise that the Others are the real enemy, and that the Starks are the only ones who have held true to this fundamental truth, through their words: "Winter is coming", in the face of mockery and derision from southron jackanapes for all this time, by attacking the virtue of this basic principle, you are effectively undermining the heroic nature of the entire Stark cause.

You are reducing them to just another petty House squabbling over the spoils of the Seven Kingdoms, when everything Stark supporters cling to requires them to be somehow greater than the rest, to be serving a cause greater and older than anyone else can comprehend.

Ah, but that's not so. Its implied though not specifically stated in the text that the Last Hero was a Stark. If it was a Stark who ended the war between the Children and the First Men by agreeing a Pact - which may well have been subsequently solemnised on the island in the Gods Eye, then the return of the Long winter means another Stark, Brandon Stark, is needed to renew the Pact.

[kissdbyfire]

Not at all, and I think Old Nan's interrupted story is the key to it all.

There's broad agreement that the Children were the original inhabitants of Westeros until the First Men turned up. They went to war and the Children were driven north but eventually made a pact with the First Men and thereafter they lived in harmony until the Andals turned up - but why?

Here's Old Nan's story:

“The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”

“Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only . . . ”

Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

“Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest"

Now there's no mention of the Pact, instead she goes on to relate:

"Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—”

At this point, Maester Luwin comes in and we never find out what happened next, but... given that there's no mention of the Pact, no mention of the Children and the First Men fighting side by side, what if the real story is that the First Men dispossesed the Children who retaliated by working their magic to bring the Long Winter and the White Walkers and that what the Last Hero did was patch up the peace treaty, the Pact, in return for their calling off their dogs?

Ok, now I'm really confused... In the quoted text above (the last bit) it says 'as cold and death filled the earth' - that's the Long Night, right? Or am I missing something? So, if that is the Long Night, I don't understand why you say (in your last paragraph) that later the First Men dispossessed the CotF who then brought the Long Winter (which is the Long Night)...

[kissdbyfire]

I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm still wondering what conditions brought about the Pact in the first place, and why - if your theory is true - the Children would give their powers to a race that was formerly trying to wipe them out?

Well, as I said, haven't connected many dots (if any at all); this is just something that occured to me while I was driving and I thought - and still think - that it's possible, that's all. I'm going to repeat myself as well, but I'm still very, very fuzzy on the details. The idea, as I thought of this possibility, was not that the CotF would have given the First Men, who were almost wiping them out entirely, the spells/access to magic or whatever it is. I don't see them as mortal enemies who disagreed on everything and then, at some point, made a peace treaty. To me, it's rather different than that. Say, the conflicts, or wars, fought between the CotF and the First Men have more to do with 'not knowing each other', cultural differences, mistrust that comes from the unknown than any fundamental difference; so much so that later the First Men embraced the Old Gods of the CotF.

I'm sorry if this post is poorly written and not very clear. I just wanted to explain roughly how I'm looking at this. I'll try to organise and collect my thoughts, and I'll elaborate and address the rest of your post when I'm in front of the computer. I struggle when writing on the tablet...

[Capon Breath]

Because Melisandre has been on the Wall as you say, and even gets stronger from it's magic as it seems, I think that the magic infused in it is actually not preventing "fire magic-people" to pass.

That, and the the fact that the Wall was built before dragons (or Andals) arrived, makes me think that the Wall was never meant to stop dragons or R'hllor people, just the White Walkers and perhaps humans from the realm.

This made me think. What if the Wall isnt there to stop anything living? What if its an enchanted barrier that holds back a true winter (as opposed to a bit of cold & snow). So Winter creatures cannot pass through North to South but everyone else can pass South to North, maybe its made of Ice because as the cold reaches the barrier it cannot pass and so accumulates there? GRRM said there is some magical explanation for the seasons.