Heresy 2

[Lummel]

At that time the cotf and first men still lived in peace and it makes complete sense, that they built the wall together to ward off the white walkers.

Hmmm. Surely that would only make complete sense if the children of the forest lived south of the wall and not north of it on the same side as the white walkers. Wouldn't it be strange to cut yourself off from your allies and trap yourself with your enemies?

That alone inclines me to think that there is something else going on.

[Bava]

The Andals arrived 6000 years ago driving cotf and first men north, thereby (as I understood it) also destroying the pact between cotf and first men. By that time the NW and the wall were at least 2000 years old.

[Lummel]

OK, but that still doesn't make sense because we know that a Kingdom of the First Men survived North of the Neck, threw back Andal invasions at Moat Calin and remained independent until the Torren(?) Stark knelt to the Targaryens. So really that raises the question of why the children would flee even further north to the lands of another enemy rather than just hanging out in the stark Kingdom.

[kissdbyfire]

OK, but that still doesn't make sense because we know that a Kingdom of the First Men survived North of the Neck, threw back Andal invasions at Moat Calin and remained independent until the Torren(?) Stark knelt to the Targaryens. So really that raises the question of why the children would flee even further north to the lands of another enemy rather than just hanging out in the stark Kingdom.

Weren't the First Men aided by the CotF when fighting against the Andals at Moat Cailin?

[Eyron]

Ah, but that assumes that the Others are actually evil. :) They're probably actually responsible for fewer deaths among the wildlings than, say, Tywin Lannister caused in the Riverlands. The lands beyond the Wall can't be heavily populated, and Mance Rayder's host was massive.

And who knows---maybe the whole reason the wights are basically "zombies" is because true winter had not yet come when our characters were meeting them. If the Others weren't at full strength in the autumn, in the daylight, (which seems like a logical guess) then logically their wight-making skills were also not at full strength. Maybe the wights become more intelligent, retain more of their personal pre-death identity, the farther we get into winter? That would be an interesting twist. The Others would basically be killing humans and then fully resurrecting them, not as mindless zombies, but as themselves. Beric said that the reason he was losing parts of himself was because he was being raised by the forces of fire, and fire consumes. Well, ice preserves. It would certainly be harder to see the Others as a purely malevolent force if they're not so much "killing" people as, say, . . . making them immortal? (Maybe that's what happened to Coldhands when he was killed "long ago", and that's why he isn't a mindless wight?)

I definitely agree the White Walkers have not yet produced as much evil as the wars in the south, counted in numbers dead and tormented. But I still assume they are doing evil. As Kissdbyfire said, the process of making immortals is the big issue.

And to me, using the powers of ice magic is evil in itself, just like Melisandres fire magic is. To me these types of magic is intertwined with sacrifices and using others as pawns to gain power and immortality for oneself, not to create something better for other people. So just as Melisandre is not pure evil, she is just human (or something similar, having human thoughts processes still) I don't think the Others/White Walkers are pure evil, but their methods undoubtedly are, to me.

So far I think the wights are slaves, they changed instantly when they were resurrected, and went to kill the ones they considered family (according to the free folk) or in the case of the men of the Night's Watch they wanted to kill their Lord Commander, their previous brothers and anyone they met on the way. Or perhaps they kill randomly, just whoever is alive that they come across, but their feet follow the old path back home. I think you could be onto something about how the wightification works, but even if they change into something like Coldhands later on I can't really say that makes it OK. I don't think immortality is anything good over all, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I'm still very much of the belief that the White Walkers are not the one and only original true and authentic "Others", but that ultimately the term encompasses the Children and all the other "Old Races" as well, and perhaps includes some of the First Men, including the Starks.

As to the cruelty business I agree. Back on the old thread I suggested a parallel with the European settlement of North America and suggested that originally the Black Crows and their "Other" counterparts, the White Walkers patrolled the frontier to prevent men moving in to settle in the reservation. While it may not be an exact comparison its worth reflecting on the underlying philosophy of Native American warfare, at least amongst the Woodlanders of the East. They were unquestionably cruel; and at best took slaves, who might however be adopted into their clans, but also murdered and tortured prisoners in what was quite literally a frightful fashion. As explained to me this was not because they enjoyed being evil but because it ensured that real war was not a game to be embarked upon lightly - it had horrible consequences. Europeans saw it differently of course and proclaimed them to be evil incarnate and that therefore their extermination was a good thing.

Now I don't want to get too deeply into this, but it does provide a good example of how perceptions work and how in this case the "Others", whether the White Walkers or anybody else, are not necessarily the threat to all mankind that we were lead to believe at the outset.

Interesting and I agree that perception is key. If you are right about the Children and the Others and they are just trying to preserve their "reservation", this piece of history is a very good comparison.

My problem with the White Walkers is that they are wielding ice magic and seem to defy death, which I think are causing damage to the world, even if it's perhaps not their intention. Just like the doom of Valyria ended the dragonlords and everyone within the perimeter I think the ice magic can cause doom to the north of Westeros, I can imagin a fast moving glacier covering all the land, like instant ice-age.

Unless the wights are unfortunate and unintentional side effects of winter and not caused by the Others/White Walkers they are indeed very dangerous, just like the dragonlords and the shadowbinders and the red priests are. They are toying with extreme powers, and it seems they don't care about the consequences, leaving a trail of dead or undead. I really do believe that magic is a sword without a hilt.

I think a in-world comparison is good here:

If the red priest came en masse burning the ground where they walked, or following in the path of the fire, resurrecting the victims of the wars in the south to uns, to do their fighting and killing, I would think they were doing evil and that they were very dangerous, no matter what their actual intentions were.

If the Others and Red priests are human (or were human before) or if they are alien, the Children, or Old Starks does not matter much from that perspective, except that I personally find it's more interesting if they were human, especially Starks. If they were not Starks, I think my second guess is the Children just because that would also be an interesting twist, but from the information in the books I really think the Others are a separate force from the Children, and that the power the Children use is fundamentally different in that they do not sacrifice for immortality, rather they give their mortal lives to be part of nature.

Perhaps there must be more ice covering the world for the seasons to be restored, and there is no other alternative to reach balance again. However, I think it would be weird if the balance between the magically caused seasons is restored by using magic. If for some strange reason the wights are necessary for this purpose I don't think the wights can ever be considered a good thing in any case, more like a necessary evil. So still evil, just like the torture of prisoners in your example.

I didn't mean the wights were/are evil, but rather that the process of bringing back the dead is, regardless of their consciousness status (zombies vs fully resurrected).

:agree:

When I realized that Beric was an undead, and then Catelyn, I thought it was really tragic. And when Jon was stabbed I was really sad even though I was sure he will return somehow, because even if he is resurrected the wights and the Uns are still dead, forced back to a painful and unnatural life without any of the joys of real life (like Drogo but walking). I would prefer Jon living on in Ghost better than him being resurrected as some kind of White Walker, male Melisandre, or some kind of un or wight.

I really hope it's just a fleshwound though...

[tze]

Weren't the First Men aided by the CotF when fighting against the Andals at Moat Cailin?

Supposedly the Children grew close to the crannogmen when the latter brought the waters down upon the Neck. It's unclear if this event took place during the initial First Men/Children conflict (and the Children ended up not shattering Westeros in the same way they did the Arm of Dorne cause they decided they liked the crannogmen) or if it took place during a later Andal invasion. Moat Cailin is supposedly older than Winterfell, and had supposedly already been built before the Children brought down the waters (as they did their magic in the Children's Tower). The Children don't seem to have built stone castles, though, so that points to the idea that the First Men built Moat Cailin, which would point towards the idea that the Children brought down the waters during an Andal invasion. But if so, that means the purpose of Moat Cailin was originally different, as the causeway is unnecessary if the Neck isn't already a swampy death trap. And as the Andals obviously had boats (the First Men crossed the Arm of Dorne, but the Andals must have come by ship) bringing down the waters on the Neck makes little sense as a military strategy if everyone was fighting the Andals, since the Andals could just build some ships and go around the Neck. I don't think the Children were working this kind of magic on a whim. It makes more sense if they were fighting the First Men, whose seafaring capabilities are less well known.

Basically, the whole series of events is very unclear.

I think the issue being pointed out is that the Children are extinct south of the Wall but survived north of it. If they were ancient enemies of the Others, why would they have either stayed north of the Wall with the Others (while their southern brethren died off) or traveled from First Man territory in the North to the lands beyond the Wall? It seems odd.

[Lummel]

I think the issue being pointed out is that the Children are extinct south of the Wall but survived north of it. If they were ancient enemies of the Others, why would they have either stayed north of the Wall with the Others (while their southern brethren died off) or traveled from First Man territory in the North to the lands beyond the Wall? It seems odd.

Yes, that's why it makes sense to me to assume that the children were either opposed to mankind or that relations between them and mankind had reached such a point that they couldn't live mingled together with them as in even earlier times and that they only way to proceed was to have this great wall separating the human kingdoms from all the others north of it.

Whether the white walkers and the children (and the giants, direwolves, grumpkins and snarks etc) are related, allied or simply are capable of peacefully co-existing I don't know at present, but certainly there are a lot of interesting ideas about.

[Bava]

To cite Luwin about the Andal invasion:

"... the King in the North threw back every army that tried to cross the Neck..."

It was first Men fighting Andals and stopping their invasion at (probably) Moat Cailin.

"The Andals burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces , slaughtered the children where they found them... So the children fled north--"

Here he is unfortunately interrupted at a point where we might learn more about the children, just like Old Nan in the last hero story.

What we get from that account is that the children were only living north of the neck by then. What happened in the following thousands of years nobody can say. Something or also a lot must have happened, why else would we find Godswoods in the South again? (The other possibility is that his entire account is false and we know absolutely nothing about what has happened at all.)

[kissdbyfire]

I understand what you are saying... I suppose maybe I read it differently or didn't understand what I was reading. I was just looking for info on Moat Cailin, I wanted to see if I could find a SSM about it but I didn't (yet). I did find something at the Citadel, though. From what I understood, it's speculative in the sense no one seems to be 100% sure, but it's more or less how I had understood some things; i.e., First Men, 12,000 years ago; Moat Cailin and Winterfell may have been built 10,000 years ago, and that's when the Pact was made; the Andal invasion (from the sea, landing on the Fingers iirc) happened 6,000 years ago.

It just makes sense to me that the FM and the CotF fought together against the Andals at Moat Cailin...

Also, I've always understood the CotF fleeing north because of the Andals; once they (Andals) realised they woudn't be able to conquer the north, they burned all remaining weirwoods south of the Neck and killed all the CotF they found. The remaining CotF were already north of the Neck, and maybe not wanting to wait and see whether the Andals would try to conquer the north again - maybe from the sea - decided to go north of the Wall. It is at least possible that they didn't fear the WW because, for all they knew back then, they (WWs) had been vanquished once and for all.

Here's the link to the Citadel bit I've just read:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/FAQ/Entry/What_were_some_important_events_in_the_ancient_past/

[tze]

"The Andals burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces , slaughtered the children where they found them... So the children fled north--"

What we get from that account is that the children were only living north of the neck by then. What happened in the following thousands of years nobody can say. Something or also a lot must have happened, why else would we find Godswoods in the South again?

Actually, I think we get we get the opposite from that account. The Andals slaughtered the Children, but the Andals never made it past the Neck. Therefore, when the Andals came, at least some of the Children were still living south of the Neck, otherwise the Andals would never have had the opportunity to kill them.

(The other possibility is that his entire account is false and we know absolutely nothing about what has happened at all.)

This is a very real possibility.

I definitely agree the White Walkers have not yet produced as much evil as the wars in the south, counted in numbers dead and tormented. But I still assume they are doing evil. As Kissdbyfire said, the process of making immortals is the big issue.

And to me, using the powers of ice magic is evil in itself, just like Melisandres fire magic is. To me these types of magic is intertwined with sacrifices and using others as pawns to gain power and immortality for oneself, not to create something better for other people. So just as Melisandre is not pure evil, she is just human (or something similar, having human thoughts processes still) I don't think the Others/White Walkers are pure evil, but their methods undoubtedly are, to me.

Arianne says something very poignant during her little "let's crown Myrcella" fiasco during AFFC: "One day the singers will make all of us immortal." Obviously she's not talking about the Children or the Others, but I do think it's an interesting turn of phrase, since singers have repeatedly been associated with granting "human" immortality via songs of heroic exploits, and now we know the long-lived Children "sing the songs of earth"; nobody knows what the Others call themselves, or what the Giants call them---they could easily be considered to "sing the songs of ice." (In fact, Leaf's little exchange with Bran is rather striking, because she mentions the Children/singers, the giants, mammoths/direwolves/western lions . . . but nothing about the Others/White Walkers at all. We don't know what the Children call them. We don't even know what the Children call themselves, only what the giants call them.) The whole religion of the old gods seems geared toward the propagation of life---when people "die" they go into the trees, streams, rocks, etc., they don't leave this earthly plain and go to a heaven/hell/world of the stars/etc. When the Kindly Man asks Arya "Do you know of any folk who live forever?", the implication GRRM could easily be hinting at is, yes, we do---the Others (and possibly the greenseers), neither of whom appear to die (at least, not of what we would consider 'natural' causes).

Benerro says, in ADWD, that death itself will bend the knee to AA, and all those who die in his/her service will be reborn. (He also says that AA will bring a summer that never ends, but maybe the Red Priests mistranslated there, and it really refers to "a winter" that never ends?) If the Others are actually trying to preserve human existence during the Long Night via wightification, as the wights can "survive" in conditions that humans cannot (yes the current wights are dead, but the line between dead and alive might be far less clear with wights made while winter magic grows), I don't know if we can call their methods inherently evil, especially as humans themselves seem so very keen on murdering and raping and flaying each other. The only thing the Others have done to people so far is kill them, which humans themselves frequently do, and then raise them, which humans practically never do.

[Bava]

Actually, I think we get we get the opposite from that account. The Andals slaughtered the Children, but the Andals never made it past the Neck. Therefore, when the Andals came, at least some of the Children were still living south of the Neck, otherwise the Andals would never have had the opportunity to kill them.

Yeah of course at the moment when they killed the cotf south of the neck the cotf that they killed were still alive. Are what do you mean to say? The result that short after the end of the Andal invasion no cotf lived south of the neck and that there are still no cotf today is the important point. Sorry for not being so clear.

[Lummel]

(The other possibility is that his entire account is false and we know absolutely nothing about what has happened at all.)

This is a very real possibility.

Well we know that the information that we are getting via the septons and the Maesters about those distant times isn't disinterested and neutral.

The Septons are going to be opposed to the old gods and anything suggestive of them. We're warned by Marwin that the Maesters have been working to build a world without magic and good maester Luwin tells about the citadel's offical view of magic. Their information is not going to be unbiased.

[hotweaselsoup]

I understand what you are saying... I suppose maybe I read it differently or didn't understand what I was reading. I was just looking for info on Moat Cailin, I wanted to see if I could find a SSM about it but I didn't (yet). I did find something at the Citadel, though. From what I understood, it's speculative in the sense no one seems to be 100% sure, but it's more or less how I had understood some things; i.e., First Men, 12,000 years ago; Moat Cailin and Winterfell may have been built 10,000 years ago, and that's when the Pact was made; the Andal invasion (from the sea, landing on the Fingers iirc) happened 6,000 years ago.

It just makes sense to me that the FM and the CotF fought together against the Andals at Moat Cailin...

Also, I've always understood the CotF fleeing north because of the Andals; once they (Andals) realised they woudn't be able to conquer the north, they burned all remaining weirwoods south of the Neck and killed all the CotF they found. The remaining CotF were already north of the Neck, and maybe not wanting to wait and see whether the Andals would try to conquer the north again - maybe from the sea - decided to go north of the Wall. It is at least possible that they didn't fear the WW because, for all they knew back then, they (WWs) had been vanquished once and for all.

Here's the link to the Citadel bit I've just read:

http://www.westeros....e_ancient_past/

Moat Cailin is a very curious castle. We don't know much about it, save for a few vague descriptions from legend. As you noted, it apparently was raised by the First Men approximately 10,000 years ago - so during the time of the Pact when the Children and the First Men were at peace. So, if the Children and the First Men were no longer at war, and the Andals were not yet in Westeros, it seems that such a mighty stronghold was raised to defend against other First Men. Moreover, the castle was built from enormous blocks of basalt - blocks the size of cottages - which makes me think that the First Men who built Moat Cailin must have had some magical help from the Children. But that seems strange, that the Children would ally themselves with one group of First Men against another group, especially as you'd think the Children would be off in their forests at this point, minding their own business and not playing whatever war games the First Men were obviously still engaging in. Perhaps the First Men enlisted the aid of the giants, and the Children weren't involved at all? And was the Neck a mire at this point? It seems hard to imagine that a castle built from cottage-size blocks of stone was built in a swamp, so maybe the Neck was dry land when Moat Cailin was built.

One of the Moat Cailin legends tells of the Children calling down the hammer of the waters from the Children's Tower. The assumption is that they are allied with the First Men here, and that they are calling down this hammer to break the Neck against the invading Andals. This is of course possible, but I'm still wondering why such a mighty fortress was built in the first place, 8000 years before the Andals supposedly set foot on Westerosi shores.

Here's another thought: could the Children have built Moat Cailin, as a last bastion against the ever-northward push by the First Men? It seems un-Children-like, to build a castle from stone, but I have this [dark] mental image of Moat Cailin beseiged by an enormous host of First Men, and then the greenseers in the Children's Tower calling down the hammer of the waters. The earth trembles, the Neck becomes a bog, and the enemy host is swallowed up. Moat Cailin is destroyed in the quake, and its mighty basalt stones are scattered, where they yet lie today.

Maybe this cataclysm, or something like it, is what led to the Pact? I still feel like something had to convince the First Men to end their warring with the Children...

[kissdbyfire]

Moat Cailin is a very curious castle. We don't know much about it, save for a few vague descriptions from legend. As you noted, it apparently was raised by the First Men approximately 10,000 years ago - so during the time of the Pact when the Children and the First Men were at peace. So, if the Children and the First Men were no longer at war, and the Andals were not yet in Westeros, it seems that such a mighty stronghold was raised to defend against other First Men. Moreover, the castle was built from enormous blocks of basalt - blocks the size of cottages - which makes me think that the First Men who built Moat Cailin must have had some magical help from the Children. But that seems strange, that the Children would ally themselves with one group of First Men against another group, especially as you'd think the Children would be off in their forests at this point, minding their own business and not playing whatever war games the First Men were obviously still engaging in. Perhaps the First Men enlisted the aid of the giants, and the Children weren't involved at all? And was the Neck a mire at this point? It seems hard to imagine that a castle built from cottage-size blocks of stone was built in a swamp, so maybe the Neck was dry land when Moat Cailin was built.

One of the Moat Cailin legends tells of the Children calling down the hammer of the waters from the Children's Tower. The assumption is that they are allied with the First Men here, and that they are calling down this hammer to break the Neck against the invading Andals. This is of course possible, but I'm still wondering why such a mighty fortress was built in the first place, 8000 years before the Andals supposedly set foot on Westerosi shores.

Here's another thought: could the Children have built Moat Cailin, as a last bastion against the ever-northward push by the First Men? It seems un-Children-like, to build a castle from stone, but I have this [dark] mental image of Moat Cailin beseiged by an enormous host of First Men, and then the greenseers in the Children's Tower calling down the hammer of the waters. The earth trembles, the Neck becomes a bog, and the enemy host is swallowed up. Moat Cailin is destroyed in the quake, and its mighty basalt stones are scattered, where they yet lie today.

Maybe this cataclysm, or something like it, is what led to the Pact? I still feel like something had to convince the First Men to end their warring with the Children...

I think it what you're saying makes a lot of sense, about the Neck becoming a bog BECAUSE (sorry, no bold or italics) of the CotF's Hammer, I was thinking the same thing. I'm not too sure as to the CotF building Moat Cailin in an attempt to stop the FM from getting north, though. Winterfell was allegedly built at the same time, 10,000 years ago... Of course, we don't know the exact dates. :-(

[BrosBeforeSnows]

Found more connection to Norse Mythology:

"When Ragnarök come, winter and cold weather will last for three years, with no summer in between the winter seasons. This was known as "fimbul-winter", or "mighty winter", snowing from all directions. Throughout the world, great battles would be fought; all taboos would be broken, brothers killing one another, and sons would murder their fathers too, mostly out of greed. No kinship would be sacred. This period would be known as the age of axes, age of swords, age of wolves, and age of winds.

The two giant wolves, Skoll will swallow up the sun (Sol), while Hati shall devour the moon (Mani). Stars will fall out of the heavens.

The giant dragon Nidhogg will begin gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasill (the Tree of Life). Nidhogg would have succeeded in eating away the roots.

Loki, who was confined in a cavern and punished for his involvement with Balder's death, will escape from his imprisonment, and lead the giants, and his monstrous offspring to destroy the gods and mankind. Fenrir will escape from his magic binding (the bound Wolf), while the Midgard Serpent named Jormungand will escape from his confinement in the sea.

Frost giants and mountain giants will leave their home in Jötunheim, and will sail toward the Plain of Vigrid in a ship called Naglfar; while the fire giants led by Surt will leave their fiery home of Müspell. Vigrid would be the field of the final battle.

Heimdall will warn the gods of Æsir of Ragnarök by sounding his horn Gjallahorn. It would be the sound of doom. THe gods will arm themselves for war, even though they know their effort is futile. All the slain heroes (Einherjar) who lived in Valhalla will accompany them. These heroes will now assist the gods in a hopeless war.

Freyr, without his magical sword and totally unarmed will be the first god to fall to Surt's flaming sword.

The one-handed god Tyr will have managed to kill the hellhound Garm, but will be so severely wounded that he will die shortly after the hound. The contest between Loki and Heimdall was so evenly matched that both will die from the other's weapon. The Thunder God Thor will smash the Midgard Serpent to death which his mighty Mjollnir, but the conflict will exact a heavy toll on the god. Thor will succumb to the venom of the serpent.

Odin will fight with his mighty spear Gungnir against the monstrous wolf Fenrir. Eventually, Odin will fall and will be devoured by the wolf. Silent Vidar, seeing his father fall to the giant wolf, will bound upon Fenrir and tear his jaws asunder with his bare hands.

Surt will then set the world ablaze with his fiery sword. None of the nine worlds escaped the flame. The earth tried to sink into the sea to avoid the scorching heat. Gods and men, giants and dwarves, will all perish in the fire. The fire will reach the heavens, and the sun will darken, and the stars will disappear from the sky".

Also, here's a connection to Ned & Robert

"Before the events of Ragnarök, a great civil war was fought amongst the gods (the Æsir-Vanir War). After the war, the two sides establish a truce and exchange hostages. Njördr, who is described as extremely wealthy, and his son Freyr, who is described as extremely handsome, shall be exchanged for Hœnir, described as extremely large and powerful, and Mimir, described as extremely wise.

Upon arrival in Vanaland, Hœnir was immediately made king, and Mimir often gave him good counsel. However, when Hœnir was at meetings without Mimir by his side, he'd always answer the same way; "Let others decide". Subsequently, the Vanaland folk suspected they had been cheated in the exchange by the Asaland folk, so they seized Mimir and beheaded him, and sent his head back to Asaland".

[The Mother of The Others]

Some of us believe Bran will be eaten by Others who believe him to be an excellent source of fiber. (The Bran = Fiber theory).

(I've got nothing new to add to the discussion today, so enjoy this:)

Consuming Bran will keep these Others regular during the long winter. And the hidden connection between Bran and the CotF may be the fibrous material found in weirwood bark!, which explains why you never hear the CotF complaining about constipation! While the Others, with their bowels all bound up, have been out shivering in the cold for so long trying to take a dump that they've frozen solid. That's why they're so filled with rage. You see, their ancient privy was located..... you guessed it..... just south of where the Wall now stands. That's where their species stored its vast reserves of Maalox and gentle laxatives. They desperately crave the relief that those laxatives would bring. All of their efforts are bent towards getting past the Wall, or the Bowel Barrier as it's known among their kind.

Chow!

[Black Crow]

The true chronology of pre-(Aegon's) Conquest Westerosi history is a real problem insofar as the only thing we can say with any certainty is that as related in that history lesson by Maester Luwin, its bunk - and GRRM has of course said as much in that speech by Sam.

There are, however, a number of significant events which we can try and place in a certain degree of context, aided perhaps by GRRM's obvious reliance on ancient British history.

In the beginning Westeros is inhabited by the Old Races, who include the Children, the Giants, the Hornfoots and so on - but not including the White Walkers.

Corresponding to the arrival of the so-called Beaker People in Britain c.2500BC the First Men arrive in Westeros, by way of migration rather than a properly organised military "conquest". As farmers, rather than hunter-gatherers, they start clearing woodland to raise crops and so come into conflict with the Others, the original inhabitants, gradually pushing them back into marginal areas and more specifically the North.

There is a War, which ends with the Pact.

At this point we have a divergence of opinion. Some of us, myself included, think that the First Men were forced to negotiate when the Children unleashed the Long Winter, which was eventually contained by the building of the Wall. Alternatively, the Long Winter may have come some time after the Pact, but this raises two problems: in the first place if the Children did not unleash the Winter, how else did they manage to force the First Men to negotiate? Secondly, GRRM has stated that the imbalance in the seasons which presumably started with the Long Winter is magical, so if the Children didn't do it, who did and why? The obvious rejoinder to that one is that it was the Others who done it, but...

The next historical event we have to contend with is the arrival of the iron-wielding Andals, which in British terms would be as recently as 500BC. I think what's important here is the fact of their invasion being successful because they had iron weapons, because this provides a very clear link to Azor Ahai. In telling Davos the story of how the sword Lightbringer was formed, Sallador Saan refers to it as a time of darkness, but as he does so to explain the cruelty of how AA tempered the steel, it could just as easily be interpreted as a bad time. There's certainly no specific reference to Winter. This would therefore suggest that the original AA was an Andal and the War for the Dawn was actually fought between the Andals and the First Men, the Children and the other "Old Races", ending in a partial victory stemmed only by the fortifications of the Neck.

In theory at this point there should have been a hostile frontier along the neck, but beyond the ordinary political bickering between kingdoms there doesn't seem to be a tradition of continued all-out war between the First Men and the Andals, but this may be where the Night's King business comes in. We've looked at the evidence for a change in allegiance at some point. Did the "Stark in Winterfell" sell out to the Andals and with their support depose the King of Winter, driving the last of the Children beyond the Wall in return for Andal support and Andal gold?

OK, as Free Northman will undoubtedly reckon, I'm being imaginative here, but I'm also trying to reconcile the known events in a real historical context, and also compressing the timelines into something more believable that the 12,000-odd years posited by the Andal historians

[Black Crow]

Just to follow on from that, I haven't discussed the White Walkers.

The reason for that is quite simple, although we're fed some folklore about them sleeping under the ice for thousands of years, the actual facts of the matter are first that there aren't very many of them about and secondly, as revealed by the way one dissolved when stabbed with obsidian, they are magical glamours rather than true living beings, thirdly, they were once human, some or all those few we've seen were Craster's sons, but we've also got a growing suspicion that some of them were or are Starks. Either way the point is that they are not a race as such but warriors conjured by somebody else. Smart money is on the Children, but if it aint them...?

[kissdbyfire]

The true chronology of pre-(Aegon's) Conquest Westerosi history is a real problem insofar as the only thing we can say with any certainty is that as related in that history lesson by Maester Luwin, its bunk - and GRRM has of course said as much in that speech by Sam.

There are, however, a number of significant events which we can try and place in a certain degree of context, aided perhaps by GRRM's obvious reliance on ancient British history.

In the beginning Westeros is inhabited by the Old Races, who include the Children, the Giants, the Hornfoots and so on - but not including the White Walkers.

Corresponding to the arrival of the so-called Beaker People in Britain c.2500BC the First Men arrive in Westeros, by way of migration rather than a properly organised military "conquest". As farmers, rather than hunter-gatherers, they start clearing woodland to raise crops and so come into conflict with the Others, the original inhabitants, gradually pushing them back into marginal areas and more specifically the North.

There is a War, which ends with the Pact.

At this point we have a divergence of opinion. Some of us, myself included, think that the First Men were forced to negotiate when the Children unleashed the Long Winter, which was eventually contained by the building of the Wall. Alternatively, the Long Winter may have come some time after the Pact, but this raises two problems: in the first place if the Children did not unleash the Winter, how else did they manage to force the First Men to negotiate? Secondly, GRRM has stated that the imbalance in the seasons which presumably started with the Long Winter is magical, so if the Children didn't do it, who did and why? The obvious rejoinder to that one is that it was the Others who done it, but...

The next historical event we have to contend with is the arrival of the iron-wielding Andals, which in British terms would be as recently as 500BC. I think what's important here is the fact of their invasion being successful because they had iron weapons, because this provides a very clear link to Azor Ahai. In telling Davos the story of how the sword Lightbringer was formed, Sallador Saan refers to it as a time of darkness, but as he does so to explain the cruelty of how AA tempered the steel, it could just as easily be interpreted as a bad time. There's certainly no specific reference to Winter. This would therefore suggest that the original AA was an Andal and the War for the Dawn was actually fought between the Andals and the First Men, the Children and the other "Old Races", ending in a partial victory stemmed only by the fortifications of the Neck.

In theory at this point there should have been a hostile frontier along the neck, but beyond the ordinary political bickering between kingdoms there doesn't seem to be a tradition of continued all-out war between the First Men and the Andals, but this may be where the Night's King business comes in. We've looked at the evidence for a change in allegiance at some point. Did the "Stark in Winterfell" sell out to the Andals and with their support depose the King of Winter, driving the last of the Children beyond the Wall in return for Andal support and Andal gold?

OK, as Free Northman will undoubtedly reckon, I'm being imaginative here, but I'm also trying to reconcile the known events in a real historical context, and also compressing the timelines into something more believable that the 12,000-odd years posited by the Andal historians

I suppose it 'could' be. A major problem I have with this is exactly the timeline, which obviously is one of the big question marks we have... I don't believe for a second that the histories recorded by the Andals are precise; I also think they are slanted and possibly biased. That said, I don't believe the rough timeline is totally inaccurate. Maybe the FM didn't arrive 12,000 years ago, and maybe Winterfell and Moat Cailin weren't built 10,000 years ago; it's possible the Andal invasion didn't happen exactly 6,000 years ago. But I don't think those dates are as off as you're proposing them to be.

Are you suggesting the FM and the CotF made a pact and later the CotF unleashed the Long Winter?

@The Mother of The Others: lol I love your posts, excellent comic relief. I still have tears running down my face!

[Black Crow]

I suppose it 'could' be. A major problem I have with this is exactly the timeline, which obviously is one of the big question marks we have... I don't believe for a second that the histories recorded by the Andals are precise; I also think they are slanted and possibly biased. That said, I don't believe the rough timeline is totally inaccurate. Maybe the FM didn't arrive 12,000 years ago, and maybe Winterfell and Moat Cailin weren't built 10,000 years ago; it's possible the Andal invasion didn't happen exactly 6,000 years ago. But I don't think those dates are as off as you're proposing them to be.

Are you suggesting the FM and the CotF made a pact and later the CotF unleashed the Long Winter?

@The Mother of The Others: lol I love your posts, excellent comic relief. I still have tears running down my face!

Agreed on Mother.

As to the rest:

Essentially all I'm doing in the first place is compressing the sequence of events into a more realistic timeline, pegged to the ancient history of Britain which Westeros resembles in so many ways.

As to the Pact, no, what I'm suggesting is that because they were losing the war against the First Men, the Children unleashed the Long Winter. This forced the First Men to agree the Pact and the Winter was then contained by the Wall.

What I'm then suggesting is that the War for the Dawn wasn't connected with the Long Winter but was the legendary version (out east) of the Andal invasion of Westeros