Heresy 4

[Black Crow]

Thank you all for the kind words. Happily “fit to die for my country” was just an expression as it’s a few years now since I did any soldiering. Nowadays I just write about it. As to the thread, well, yes it has turned out to be an interesting one with no fewer than 1338 replies spread over the first three versions since it started on 28 November – little over a month ago, and another 19 for Heresy 4 since it went up this morning which if not a record is pretty impressive.

Anyway, to business...

[Black Crow]

OK, just to prove I’m still around: GRRM has warned us (twice) through Sam that the histories are unreliable and commented directly that it’s a bit “misty”. In particular Maester Luwin’s history is plainly dodgy with some interesting contradictions, so we’re trying to make sense of it.

Rather than go over everything I want to look at this business of the Watch and the Children. Sam tells Jon “the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during-“

“Long ago,” Jon broke in…

I really don’t think there’s any significance to the interruption itself. Sam is basically saying that the “oldest” list has 674 names on it, since when a further 324 commanders have served to bring us up to Jon as the 998^th. Sam, being able to count above 20 without taking his boots off is just emphasising the limits of the information and Jon is taking the point that it was written a long time ago.

What we don’t know however is whether Sam has any reason other than antiquity to doubt the accuracy of the count.

Now bear with me here. We’ve discussed before how the traditional dating of the Long Night and the building of the Wall taking place 8,000 years ago would produce an average tenure of eight years a time for close on 1,000 Lord Commanders, so that “oldest list” presumably goes back something short of 3,000 years. We’ve also reckoned that the supposed arrival of the Andals in the Vale 6,000-odd years ago is a red herring and that the main Andal invasion didn’t get under way until 4,000 years ago under pressure from the Valyrians. Given that we’re talking about a very long time ago when things are indeed “misty” we’ve got an approximate gap of 1,000 years between the Andal invasion and the compilation of the List.

Suppose that instead of an eight year average those 674 Lord Commanders were chosen annually, and that the oldest name on that oldest list was the first to get the job after the Night’s King got his come-uppance?

This would then be consistent with the theory we’ve been discussing that the Night’s King story is connected with the expulsion of the Children and the “other old races” – the Others, from the Kingdom of the North and the availability of steel weapons. There is an apparent contradiction of course in Sam’s statement about the Children giving the Watch those 100 pieces of obsidian annually “during the Age of Heroes”, which by Maester Luwin’s reckoning (and the designation of the Last Hero) ended with the Long Night, but Sam is emphasising the unreliability of the records so the “Age of Heroes” could just be a synonym for a very long time ago. What we do know is that it stopped, and the Night’s King business and what followed seems the likeliest explanation.

[slayer420]

Sam says before the line about a list of 674 LCs "that we say you are the 998th LC. But". so if there was a list with 674 and they knew there were 324 Lcs after that last name on the the list, then he would know he was the 998th. There wouldnt be question. So why is sam not sure? Also if the COTF did create the WW's they didn't have to tell anyone they did it. So this could be why the North people don't say bad things about them if that was the case. Kind of like hiring a bully to beat some one up, then coming in to save the day to be the hero.

[Black Crow]

Sam says before the line about a list of 674 LCs "that we say you are the 998th LC. But". so if there was a list with 674 and they knew there were 324 Lcs after that last name on the the list, then he would know he was the 998th. There wouldnt be question. So why is sam not sure?

Presumably there's something odd about the list. As I say we've been assuming that all the Lord Commanders serve for life, hence the presumed eight year average, but if it was obvious from the list that some or all of those on it, and perhaps some of them since, were being elected annually then Sam would conclude that the list didn't go all the way back to the building of the wall and that therefore there should be a lot more than 998 Lord Commanders.

However, if that annual list started with the 14th Lord Commander - the one after the Night's King, who may have bucked protocol by staying in charge for 13 years rather than standing down after one - then as I say that would place it in the period when the Andals were trying to conquer Westeros.

We've speculated before about the original purpose of the Watch and whether its function was to police the Pact, but if we follow this scenario we've got the First Men (including the Watch) and the Children holding off the Andals at the Neck. For whatever reason, Stark of Winterfell and Joruman then overthrow the Night's King, defeat the Children/Others, sending them north of the Wall built to contain the winter and then manning it against them

[Lummel]

Sam says before the line about a list of 674 LCs that we say you are the 998th LC. But. so if there was a list with 674 and they knew there were 324 Lcs after that last name on the the list, then he would know he was the 998th. There wouldnt be question. So why is sam not sure?

Short answer - nobody knows, longer answer what if he doesn't know there were 324 LCs after the last named LC on that list? What if it is just the longest and oldest list he's found but it overlaps with more recent lists?

Suppose that instead of an eight year average those 674 Lord Commanders were chosen annually, and that the oldest name on that oldest list was the first to get the job after the Night’s King got his come-uppance?

This would then be consistent with the theory we’ve been discussing that the Night’s King story is connected with the expulsion of the Children and the “other old races” – the Others, from the Kingdom of the North and the availability of steel weapons. There is an apparent contradiction of course in Sam’s statement about the Children giving the Watch those 100 pieces of obsidian annually “during the Age of Heroes”, which by Maester Luwin’s reckoning (and the designation of the Last Hero) ended with the Long Night, but Sam is emphasising the unreliability of the records so the “Age of Heroes” could just be a synonym for a very long time ago. What we do know is that it stopped, and the Night’s King business and what followed seems the likeliest explanation.

My first thought was if you had annual elections wouldn't you tend to see the same names reoccuring, there only being a few senior offices were you would get teh kind of reputation to win an election but then I had a really weird thought.

Frazer "The Golden Bough" big old 19th century book about comparative religion and the origins of religion and magical thinking. He begins by describing this cult that survived into Roman times in Italy. Originally one man would be married to the local Goddess and become King. He had to live on a sacred island I think, or maybe in a sacred wood, something like that. If another man swam out to the island, or entered the wood and killed the King in hand to hand combat then he would become the new King and would be married to the goddess in the same way. What if the Nights Watch was originally similar and the lord commander had to be married to the Goddess (don't Caster's wives call the white walkers Gods?) who was a white walker lady...or Other in some way for such a period of time as he was strong and able to father children (maybe like making Melisandre's shadow babies making white walker babies might be physically draining for a man)? Maybe that is why marriage is banned - the Nights watch are like bees or Ants only the top one was allowed/obliged to marry? Sorry this is all pure 'what if' ...

[Black Crow]

Given how widely read GRRM seems to be in this sort of thing, it would actually make a lot of sense if something like this was going on. As I recall another variation was that the King ruled for a year and was then put into the ground, ie: sacrificed. If the Night's King held on for 13 years that might have provided a motive for his own brother to turn against him, especially if it was seen as the reason for other things going badly like the defences of Moat Caillin starting to crumble. While this might not have been the only motive for deposing the Night's King it would certainly be consistent with the story and again, as we've been discussing could have set in train the final battle with the Children.

[hotweaselsoup]

This would then be consistent with the theory we’ve been discussing that the Night’s King story is connected with the expulsion of the Children and the “other old races” – the Others, from the Kingdom of the North and the availability of steel weapons. There is an apparent contradiction of course in Sam’s statement about the Children giving the Watch those 100 pieces of obsidian annually “during the Age of Heroes”, which by Maester Luwin’s reckoning (and the designation of the Last Hero) ended with the Long Night, but Sam is emphasising the unreliability of the records so the “Age of Heroes” could just be a synonym for a very long time ago. What we do know is that it stopped, and the Night’s King business and what followed seems the likeliest explanation.

Black Crow, I may not be understanding your theory correctly, but I'm not really feeling the Kings of Winter turning on the Children and expelling them from the North. Mainly because the North still keeps the old gods, and I would think any Andal "crusaders" would demand a conversion to the Seven above everything - so I don't see an alliance. But I may be misreading your theory, so please explain it to me again if I'm getting it wrong!

As an aside, I'm wondering if all the Children really did flee north of the Wall. Could they perhaps have gone underground instead? I know I've harped on the notion that I think something's up down below, but remember the House of the Undying - the woman being raped by the four little rat men? An anthropomorphized (gynecomorphized?) Westeros, of course, with the rat men representing the kings fighting over her. But this idea that Westeros is a body - with a Neck, and Fingers, and a broken Arm, and (most tellingly, imo) a High Heart - is linked to the idea that the surface of the world is like its skin. So much of this story is about the spirit beneath the skin - the binding, the enslaving, the hiding, the moving, the sharing of that spirit or life force, whether it be through skin-changing or blood magic or necromancy or mummery, and so on - that I can't help but wonder if the world's "spirit" somehow also lies beneath its surface.

[slayer420]

also if you look at eh map the north looks like a head, also the COTF could be the "Brain" they have all the memory and the tree system is kind of like a nerveus system.

[hotweaselsoup]

Short answer - nobody knows, longer answer what if he doesn't know there were 324 LCs after the last named LC on that list? What if it is just the longest and oldest list he's found but it overlaps with more recent lists?

My first thought was if you had annual elections wouldn't you tend to see the same names reoccuring, there only being a few senior offices were you would get teh kind of reputation to win an election but then I had a really weird thought.

Frazer "The Golden Bough" big old 19th century book about comparative religion and the origins of religion and magical thinking. He begins by describing this cult that survived into Roman times in Italy. Originally one man would be married to the local Goddess and become King. He had to live on a sacred island I think, or maybe in a sacred wood, something like that. If another man swam out to the island, or entered the wood and killed the King in hand to hand combat then he would become the new King and would be married to the goddess in the same way. What if the Nights Watch was originally similar and the lord commander had to be married to the Goddess (don't Caster's wives call the white walkers Gods?) who was a white walker lady...or Other in some way for such a period of time as he was strong and able to father children (maybe like making Melisandre's shadow babies making white walker babies might be physically draining for a man)? Maybe that is why marriage is banned - the Nights watch are like bees or Ants only the top one was allowed/obliged to marry? Sorry this is all pure 'what if' ...

Something like this occurs in Pentos, iirc. The Prince of Pentos must "deflower the maid of the fields and the maid of the seas" on the first day of the new year. "Yet should a crop fail or a war be lost", his throat is cut to appease the gods, and a new prince is chosen from among the forty families of Pentos.

Maybe, as you said, the Lord Commander (or the Stark on the Wall, perhaps) must "give his seed" to some White Goddess beyond the Wall. Should he fail, Winter is unleashed until a sacrifice is made to appease the gods?? Or something along those lines...

It fits the "feel" of ASoIaF, that's for sure. :D I LIKE it, Lummel!!

[Black Crow]

Black Crow, I may not be understanding your theory correctly, but I'm not really feeling the Kings of Winter turning on the Children and expelling them from the North. Mainly because the North still keeps the old gods, and I would think any Andal "crusaders" would demand a conversion to the Seven above everything - so I don't see an alliance. But I may be misreading your theory, so please explain it to me again if I'm getting it wrong!

No, you're not misunderstanding, but I think the Night's King business provides the explanation if, as I've suggested above the original Lord Commanders served for only a year and a day before being put into the ground. As you've just mentioned there is the very similar business in Pentos, so GRRM is obviously reading the same books as Lummel and myself. Therefore going back just 674 years using Sam's oldest list puts the Night's King in the Andal invasion period if the records of his rule (and before?) are erased.

While noting your reservations about what might be going on down below, both Osha and Maester Luwin are pretty positive about the Children and other old races fleeing above the Wall - so again the Nights King business provides a reason. As to the Andals requiring that the Northerners take up the Faith as the price of peace; to a certain extent they have because most of the Nights Watch belong to the Seven rather than the Old Gods. Its a bit like Catholicism surviving in the North of England in the 16th and 17th century; Protestantism is the official state religion, but the old families still cling to the old faith.

[hotweaselsoup]

No, you're not misunderstanding, but I think the Night's King business provides the explanation if, as I've suggested above the original Lord Commanders served for only a year and a day before being put into the ground. As you've just mentioned there is the very similar business in Pentos, so GRRM is obviously reading the same books as Lummel and myself. Therefore going back just 674 years using Sam's oldest list puts the Night's King in the Andal invasion period if the records of his rule (and before?) are erased.

While noting your reservations about what might be going on down below, both Osha and Maester Luwin are pretty positive about the Children and other old races fleeing above the Wall - so again the Nights King business provides a reason. As to the Andals requiring that the Northerners take up the Faith as the price of peace; to a certain extent they have because most of the Nights Watch belong to the Seven rather than the Old Gods. Its a bit like Catholicism surviving in the North of England in the 16th and 17th century; Protestantism is the official state religion, but the old families still cling to the old faith.

Hmmm...not sure about the Lord Commander's tenure being a single year. Is your thought now that the Night's Watch, and ergo the Wall as well, are now less than 1000 years old? And as far as the Night's King Affair happening during the Andal invasion - I thought the Andals came over sometime around 6000-4000 years ago? Have we moved the invasion up 3000 years? I'm all for shifting the timeline a bit - as you said, it gets pretty misty the farther back we go - but compressing what was formerly several thousands of years into less than a millennium seems like a major revision, and maybe a bit like manipulating the facts to fit the theory, rather than vice versa?

And here I was, living on the fringe and being all heretical and loving it, and now I've gone all maesterly on you! Sorry, Black Crow :D

(On the other hand, and in light of the last couple of posts, if we think of the Lord Commander's tenure as having a season's duration, rather than a year (i.e. 365 days) - maybe the numbers work then?)

[mrazny]

Hmmm...not sure about the Lord Commander's tenure being a single year. Is your thought now that the Night's Watch, and ergo the Wall as well, are now less than 1000 years old? And as far as the Night's King Affair happening during the Andal invasion - I thought the Andals came over sometime around 6000-4000 years ago? Have we moved the invasion up 3000 years? I'm all for shifting the timeline a bit - as you said, it gets pretty misty the farther back we go - but compressing what was formerly several thousands of years into less than a millennium seems like a major revision, and maybe a bit like manipulating the facts to fit the theory, rather than vice versa?

And here I was, living on the fringe and being all heretical and loving it, and now I've gone all maesterly on you! Sorry, Black Crow :D

(On the other hand, and in light of the last couple of posts, if we think of the Lord Commander's tenure as having a season's duration, rather than a year (i.e. 365 days) - maybe the numbers work then?)

Not interjecting just to interject, but I'd like to get what's being presented clear in my head as well.

I took BC's thoughts to be that it's a list of 674 that was made 3,000-ish years ago, and the 324 since had the 8-ish year command average that might seem normal. But those 674 listed had a very different tradition that truncated the lifespan based on some potential ritualistic ending to their command. If say that reduced span of leadership was 1-2 years, we're now in the ballpark of the 3,000 year old list went back another 1,000 years to somewhere around the Andal invasion? I believe with the thought that the Night's King trial happens somewhere at or near the Andal invasion? Then 700-1000 years before the Andals changed the traditions of the Watch?

[Francis Buck]

The point that Martin has repeatedly made in interviews is one that you guys supporting this theory seem to be misssing.

It is the point that while the Houses are involved in the petty squabbling and quest for power that is their Game of Thrones, the REAL threat is building up in the North, beyond the Wall.

This isn't some misinterpreted, exaggerated danger, which will turn out to be not so bad if people just understand the Others and what motivates them. Nope, this is the real, existential threat to all of mankind.

That's what Martin's entire story is about. The pointlessness of the Game of Thrones when the real threat is ignored by all but the ragged few outcasts guarding the Wall.

The thing is, all of what you said can remain true for many of the theories here to still be legitimate. Just because the Starks happen to be related to the Others, or even if they ally with them, doesn't change the fact that the rest of Westeros is still in danger. It's all a matter of perspective. The Others don't have to be an irrationality evil force bent on humankind's destruction (which there really is very little evidence for) in order for them to enemies to a large portion of the continent. In addition, the Starks can still be allied with the Others without them suddenly "being the good guys".

I'll post here the same thing I did in a different thread, which brings up this and several other related issues:

I think the mistake with this train of thought is that you're arbitrarily categorizing the Others as just plain "bad guys". Hasn't this series shown time and time again that "bad" or "evil" is often a relative term, and can appear differently depending on which side of the fence you're on? I mean sure, you've got your Gregors and your Joffreys, but there are also the Jaimes, the Theons, the Mance Rayders. Hell, even look at Tyrion. The vast majority of Westeros doesn't consider Tyrion to be a witty, intelligent, generally good natured but ultimately tragic figure resulting from a history of child abuse; instead he's a twisted little monkey demon, murderous, power-hungry, and without any honor. So I think it's a mistake to simply say "the Others are bad because...well, they seem really evil, and that's all we know". Nothing is ever as it seems in this series. It's practically one of the defining aspects of the entire mythology. Even the Children of the Forest, seemingly innocuous, nature-loving little woodland elves, ultimately turn out to be very dark, creepy, and in possession of some rather dubious motivations. Why should the Others be any different?

That being said, I think people are also oversimplifying the matter when they assume that, if the Starks were

to ally with the Others, then somehow the Others automatically turn out to be "the good guys". I think the whole point of the Starks and the Others being related is that, to pretty much the rest of Westeros, the Starks will look like the bad guys. Everyone's still going to think the Others are an implacable force of evil, but now the Starks are part of that evil. When the Starks come back for revenge, they're not just going to "kill all the bad guys" and then form a nice little happy family back in Winterfell; their revenge will be widespread and merciless, just as their house's destruction was. That's also why I think Jon Snow will be "leading" this army as an undead being. When Catelyn was brought back, she was far less "human"; her only desire was vengance, and it was without any mercy. Though Jon's death was perhaps not so bad as hers, he was nonetheless betrayed his own Black Brothers, the very organization he's devoted his life to, and has made numerous sacrifices to uphold. If he does get revived, he isn't going to be too happy.

As far as the so-called history of the Others, I don't think it's reliable. I mean, we KNOW for a fact that history in Westeros and the world at large is very unreliable, it has been stated multiple times in the series, and there are countless threads pointing out the various contradictions and gaps within the proposed "history" that we do know about. And let's face it, if the Starks are somehow related to the Others, don't you think the family would have done everything in their power to erase that fact from the history books? Which, again, is something we have some evidence for - we know parts of the Stark's history are foggy, and have been selectively removed.

And really, the evidence I've listed in this thread isn't even the tip of ice berg. I made a huge thread about this months ago, and numerous other people have postulated it totally independently. If different people can come to the same conclusion from separate paths, then it means there's a considerable amount of legitimate evidence for it, and more and more people have begun to agree with it over time. When I made my original thread about this back last summer, very, very few bought into it. Now there are multiple threads regarding it, with numerous proponents of the theory. I don't think it's a coincidence.

On top of that, I've yet to really see anyone postulate a legitimate set of reasons as to WHY this theory is so impossible. Instead, I think most people's knee-jerk reaction that the theory's wrong is not based on actual evidence, but simply because they don't like the idea itself, nor the possible consequences it could have: that the Others are not just an unreasonable force of evil, that the people of Westeros won't all unite together to fight against a common enemy, that Jon and Dany may never meet on friendly terms, that the Starks will perhaps not be a set of undeniably heroic good guys in the end...the list goes on. And why should we even expect these things? GRRM has literally made a fucking career out of subverting the normal fantasy conventions. I see no reason why the saga's climax would suddenly change all of this, and end up taking the safe, typical, expected route. It never has before.

[hotweaselsoup]

Not interjecting just to interject, but I'd like to get what's being presented clear in my head as well.

I took BC's thoughts to be that it's a list of 674 that was made 3,000-ish years ago, and the 324 since had the 8-ish year command average that might seem normal. But those 674 listed had a very different tradition that truncated the lifespan based on some potential ritualistic ending to their command. If say that reduced span of leadership was 1-2 years, we're now in the ballpark of the 3,000 year old list went back another 1,000 years to somewhere around the Andal invasion? I believe with the thought that the Night's King trial happens somewhere at or near the Andal invasion? Then 700-1000 years before the Andals changed the traditions of the Watch?

AH, lightbulb!

Thanks for clearing up the reasoning for me. Although, we're left with a rather long gap of time to fill if the Long Winter really did happen 8000 years ago, right? If the Andals invaded around 4000 years ago (picked that number so it would line up with the theory that the Andals were fleeing the Valyrian press northward), and we figure all the Lord Commanders post-Andal invasion had commands averaging 8 years - that gives us an even 500 Lord Commanders with regular (i.e.non-sacrificial rite) tenures. If the first 500 (pre-Andal invasion) Lord Commanders (although these we might consider more like the Prince of Pentos - maybe chosen from the 100 kingdoms of First Men?) had short tenures of only one year each - that only takes us back another 500 years. This is nowhere near 8000 years ago. So that's a bit problematic, yes?

But, maybe if these Prince Commanders reigned for a season (a winter? a summer?), rather than a single year, we would then come closer to the accepted date of the Long Winter at -8000 years? I also like the idea that the length of the seasons are dependent somehow on these Prince Commanders - as long as they stay "true", the winter is kept at bay?

And there's the idea that the Night's King rebelled against the tradition of sacrificing the Prince Commander (if that is indeed what happened). We'd be putting his Affair/Rebellion around 4000 years ago, to line up with the Andal invasion (which in turn solves the problem of steel swords vs. the Others).

So, what about this timeline:

-----

8000 years ago, the Long Night is unleashed by the Children against the kingdoms of the First Men.

The Last Hero finds the Children, makes a Pact. From that point onward, one Prince must be chosen from the 100 Kingdoms of the First Men, to serve as a hostage against the return of the Others/Winter. As long as the Kings remain faithful and do not war against the Children, the old gods are pleased and Summer holds sway. But should the Kings break the Pact, the Prince is sacrificed and Winter returns. Until another Prince is chosen to appease the gods.

There follows 4000 years of truce between Children and First Men.

4000 years ago, the Prince who is chosen is a powerful warg from House Stark. Something Happens, and he rebels against his fate. He marshalls his forces from his seat at the Nightfort, and prepares to ride south with all the power of winter and darkness behind him.

The Stark in Winterfell and Joruman the Giant ride out to meet the Night's King in the Battle for the Dawn (wielding the steel swords they acquired while battling the Andals in the south). Joruman sounds his horn, and something breaks - the Night King's hold on his warged legions? The walls of the Nightfort? - and the Night King is defeated. But he is neither captured nor killed. Instead, the Night's King flees northward, into the heart of Winter. (Or, he is killed, but his soul flies into his giant dire wolf, and the wolf escapes north. The bones of the Night's King are carried back to Winterfell, and now lie down at the deepest level of the crypts.)

The Wall is raised by the Stark in Winterfell and Joruman and his giants. The Wall is raised to prevent the Night's King and his White Walkers from passing through once more into the realms of men. The Night's Watch is formed, to watch for his return.

4000 years pass until the present day. Something Has Happened, and the Others - and the Night's King - are coming back.

-----

Eh, full of holes, I know.

Anyway, the whole thing is still somewhat haphazard in my mind - my math-challenged brain's fault, not Black Crow's theory! Still lots to mull over...

[Black Crow]

Anyway, the whole thing is still somewhat haphazard in my mind - my math-challenged brain's fault, not Black Crow's theory! Still lots to mull over...

This is basically the sort of scenario I'm thinking about, except that I'm still of a mind to follow Capon Breath's suggestion that the Wall was built by the Children after the Last Hero cried pax, to contain the Winter they unleashed; so still following the "official" timeline of being built 4,000 years before the Andal invasion.

However, as its a protection against Winter rather than the White Walkers it wouldn't have needed manning in the early days.

Tied into this business of the Night's King being erased from the records - although everybody seems to know about him - I suspect, as I said earlier that there are no records of the earlier Lord Commanders, which is why Sam thinks that the total of 998 is wrong. What I'm suggesting is that either because the Night's KIng broke the rules, or simply because there was too much pressure from the Andals, his brother and Joruman (doesn't sound like a giant name) turned on him and on the Children, forcing them to flee beyond the Wall. After which the Watch, for the first time and with Andal support, manned the Wall to ensure they couldn't come back.

Now, an intriguing little thought for you. Osha hints that they tell history differently up north beyond the Wall. Old Nan tells us that the Night's King was a Stark, but otherwise we don't know his name... Was it Gendel?

[Kennit]

I have a theory that sentient wights(Night's king wife, Coldhands) are humans who willingly chose to ally themselves with the Others, as opposed to "post-death" wights who are pretty much zombies.

Unfortunately the only suppurting evidence I have for this is that the Night's king wife is said to be attractive, which is unlike the wights we know so far(who are scarred by their death marks).

Opinions?

[Free Northman]

Sigh.

I can't begin to refute any of the outlandish theories above, simply because they are all based on highly speculative "what if" scenarios. Scenarios that are completely without any supporting evidence.

Such as the Lord Commander suddenly not serving for life anymore, but for only 1 year.

There is simply no evidence that even hints at this, nevermind supporting it outright.

Honestly, I think you guys are clearly very creative, and your theories would even make for a good story - in some other series. But you aren't describing the Song of Ice and Fire as it has been presented to us over the course of 5 books. That's for sure.

[kissdbyfire]

Yoo-hoo! Heresy 4, bigger, badder and better! :cheers:

Why do you think that? Curious what is in the text that convinces you that the existence of the white walkers will/does/could render the existence of other species impossible?

Well, I think it’s because of the info we have on the Long Night. Regardless of who/what they are, who/what has created them and so on and so forth, the accounts we have of the Long Night speak of winter lasting for ‘a generation’ (and I understand it wouldn’t be the same span as we use the term), endless night, snow and cold etc. The explanation that they only come out when it’s dark, or that it gets dark when they come out doesn’t matter; the egg or the chicken coming first wouldn’t matter here – what does matter is that for them to be (or because they become) ‘active’, you’d get no sun, and everlasting night and winter, making it impossible for other species to survive. Of course, this could be all wrong; it’s just my take on them. It’s also just occurred to me that if they only come out after sunset rather than bringing the night, coexistence would be possible; WWs go about their business at night; all other species during the day. I say possible, but I think that sounds rather silly, actually. :dunno:

On other issues...

I do believe (for now, anyway) that the WWs are connected to magic and the First Men. As I’ve said before, I think the FM learned spells and magic from the CotF, tried to use it to their advantage (immortality?), and it blew in their faces resulting in the Long Winter. However, I don’t think this was something done solely by the Starks, but rather several (all is unlikely, but possible) FM.

I always, always struggle with generalisations of any kind, be it in literature, in movies, and in real life. The idea that a whole sample of people are ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’, etc. seems unrealistic and downright silly, not to mention statistically unlikely – if not impossible. In any sample of people, you’ll get light grey people, dark grey people, and possibly a couple of apples rotten to the core and a couple of ‘saintly’ do-gooders. Of course, you’d need sufficient numbers for this to apply, but I think you get my gist. So, the same way some people are arguing that the Starks aren’t – or haven’t always been – the honourable do-gooders some take them to be, I don’t buy the theory that they were evil incarnate (not that anyone has suggested this here to my knowledge) or that they were the only ones responsible for *it* hitting the fan.

Another thing that has been bugging me no end is that bloody list of LCs Sam finds and talks to Jon about. There’s something there, in the text, and every time I read it, it kinda jumps at me saying ‘BOO’, only to disappear before I can grasp its meaning. Did that make any sense at all? Every time I read that bit I literally feel like hitting my head against a wall... :bang:

[Ashen Shugar]

Not that I'm with this theory(as awesome as it would be), however:

A possible explanation for the 100 obsidian blades a year(assuming the others/children are on the same side) could be that they were a tribute like what the Pentoshi do with the Dothraki. Basically the Children were told, "you don't give us the weapons to beat your buddies every year and we come over the wall and after you". 100 might not seem a lot but if the watch knew that the Others only came once in a long time, say a couple decades or more, that's 2000 blades on top of whatever they made/bought themselves.

The whole children created the long winter and they/the wall are containing it doesn't make sense to me, because we know that there have been many winters since the wall has gone up. Which leaves the possibility that the wall is stopping an eternal winter from occurring but allows shorter winters that go for several years, but that seems.. I dunno, wrong?

[chrisdaw]

Not of any real great importance, but perhaps there was a deal, obsidian weapons once a year for sacrifices to the weirwoods. Perhaps the North stopped sacrificing to the weirwoods as they had agreed and so the weapons stopped. Also, given there was a pact between the first men and COTF that the first men agreed to leave the forest be, perhaps those who were sacrificed to the weirwoods were those who disregarded the agreement.

Anyway, all those weapons should be somewhere in the NW's posession shouldn't they?