The Others, are they really the evil they appear to be?

[the Scorpion Knight]

I'm also dreading that ice spiders will appear... :stillsick: Don't like it, don't like it at all... Creepy deathmachines, that can CLIMB the Wall in a few seconds perhaps... Better start piling up those barrels again.

We have not seen them yet though, so there is hope! It's probably just a vicious rumour... right? :uhoh:

I think they are true ,but they might be more the dogs(they might even have the behaviour pattern like dogs just to make more unnatural apprearing) to the Others.

to the others themselves I think that someone (euron and or Qyburn) violated one of they're places and went on a nasty rampage which will be halted the very last minute.

[Falrinn]

Ewwwww Spiders!!!! KILLITKILLITKILLITWITHFIRE! (biggest possible redemption arc for Dany in my book: letting her dragons burn ice spiders)

I swear to the Old Gods and the New, and the Drowned God and R'hllor, if Martin writes anything slightly resembling spiders I will....probably wet myself and die XD. Arachnophobia FTW.NOT.

I on the other hand, will probably find ice spiders "awesome". But that's just me, and I think we've already established that I have odd views towards things dealing with the Others.

[The GRRumbler]

I on the other hand, will probably find ice spiders "awesome". But that's just me, and I think we've already established that I have odd views towards things dealing with the Others.

You should play Dungeons & Dragons Online, these anoying little things there urgh!! they come out of nothing :P

About the OP's question, i think so, from what we've seen until now, they're killing indiscrimanetly, wildlings, crows, and the only one they don't kill is making them human baby sacrifices, and that's not exactly being nice.

[Eyron]

At the Fist, I believe something similar happened - the men of the Night's Watch started shooting arrows when the Walkers approached their camp... but did the Others actually do anything first?

ETA: Now that Eira mentioned it... indeed, was that Walkers? Or just wights?

I cannot remember to be honest, you may be right and there were only wights.

I forgot to come back to this, the Battle of the Fist.

It was only wights that attacked. The white walkers were waiting in the woods and attacked those that fell behind and strayed when the Watch fled through the woods. That seems to be their only tactic so far since this is what Tormund said they did to his group too. We'll have to reserve judgement until we get reports from Hardhome on what happens there.

So far I think they are using the wights as a van to avoid direct confrontation themselves. Maybe they don't want to leave the woods (they have excellent camouflage) or for some reason must stay in the woods.

Both Tormund IIRC and Mormont used the same tactic of defense when moving, having torchbearers surrounding the group as they moved.

[Roose Seal]

Isn't it all a matter of perspective ?

Evilness is relative. For the wildlings, the Night's Watch is evil, for the Night's Watch, the wildlings are evil.

I think this series makes it abundantly clear that morality and good/evil are completely a matter of Point of View.

I'll avoid Godwin's law by saying even Stalin thought he was genuinely good for his country.

To me, the Others are sort of like the Elder Things in the Lovecraft universe. Not inherently evil, but from a human PoV, they're definitely antagonists.

[Catastrophe]

Isn't it all a matter of perspective ?

Evilness is relative. For the wildlings, the Night's Watch is evil, for the Night's Watch, the wildlings are evil.

I think this series makes it abundantly clear that morality and good/evil are completely a matter of Point of View.

I'll avoid Godwin's law by saying even Stalin thought he was genuinely good for his country.

How do you know that the Others aren't the exception that prove the rule? Wouldn't the existence of one force that was truly evil be a perfect narrative contrast to the morally ambiguous human characters? The series makes it clear that no people are truly evil, and comparing the human antagonists to a genuinely evil inhuman force is a great way to demonstrate that. It's pretty clear that the people of Westeros are making a huge mistake by fighting each other when they should be joining forces to combat the living extinction event looming behind the Wall.

Also, avoiding Godwin's Law by bringing up Stalin is kinda missing the point.

[corbon]

Im just hoping there is an interesting,plausible history behind their origin and goals,otherwise it will be very one-dimensional type of villians.like

that sauron guy from lotr.wtf is that anyway?ive not read books just seen the movies so the "enemy" seems to be nothing more than a lighthouse..

So i want the others to be more complex villians,not absolute evil

Kind of an aside but if you actually ready the books, and particularly the background, Sauron (the eye) is very far from one dimensional. He was originally a Maia, the same as Gandalf etc and has a vast and complex history with both men and elves, not always the apparent bad guy. He's just painted that way by the current 'good guys' because the 'good guys' are the naturalists and the 'bad guys' are the industrialists.

But if you just get your info from hollywood movies, one dimensional is all you can expect.

One thing that I am very curious about is what 'woke them up' after all this time - could have been Mance digging around in graves, as has been said, but somehow I think it's more than that.

As another aside, certainly Mance digging up the graves has zero to do with the Others re-emergence. Its is a result, not a cause. The individual wildling tribes had tried to stand against the Others and their wights and failed, being bloodied badly. Mance united them to try and protect themselves and they were still being bloodied by the Others, so he was digging up the graves to try and find the Horn of Joramund in ordder to blackmail or bluff the NW into letting the wildlings pass through the wall to gain its protection from the Others.

The release of the 'shades' are either harmless ghosts or nothing at all beyond grave-good-protecting cultural superstition. There was no actual effect from doing so that we hear about and no actual precautions or resulting actions taken that we hear about.

So far their intent seems to be more to "scare" than "massacre" the Wildlings. They seem happy to push them south of the wall. Same with the men of the Night's Watch after the battle of the Fists of the First Men. They are herding them south like sheep, just killing off the stragglers. I have no clue what their ultimate purpose or motive is.

Except that they had already been massacring wildlings further north. Just the ones we see are further south and in lesser strength, until late in ADwD where the massacres are reaching further south.

According to Tormund the WWs only took those that fell behind, or got lost, from his group. He seemed to fear the cold more than anything.

When there is easy prey around, you don't attack the difficult prey unnecessarily. Tormund and his immediate group were the difficult prey.

The white walkers don't kill everything in their way, they didn't kill Craster and his family, that is why he stayed behind in his home when every other wildling had left their home village.

Craster is far south from most other wildlings and quite isolated. This is the only case we know of where the Others didn't kill everything they could.

Chances are they weren't in his area in force, were scouts rather than raiders, or were just amused by the strangness of someone offering them babies (the prologue to AGoT shows they have a cruel sense of humour, perhaps).

Whatever the reason, making inferences from a single anomalous data point is dangerous.

[Roose Seal]

How do you know that the Others aren't the exception that prove the rule?

I don't. If you actually read my post, you'll see I made no assumptions. Just suppositions, based on my perception of the others, based on what little information we have.

Wouldn't the existence of one force that was truly evil be a perfect narrative contrast to the morally ambiguous human characters? The series makes it clear that no people are truly evil, and comparing the human antagonists to a genuinely evil inhuman force is a great way to demonstrate that. It's pretty clear that the people of Westeros are making a huge mistake by fighting each other when they should be joining forces to combat the living extinction event looming behind the Wall.

I think you missed my point. At this point in the series, we know practically nothing about the Others. Right now they are evil soulless ice zombies but I was just saying "what if they're not ?"

Gotta take into consideration the possibility that from the Others' point of view, the Westerosi are evil soulless baboons.

From a narrative point of view, I'm not sure what would be the point of having a purely evil race of ice ninjas appear at the final moment when GRRM has gone at great lengths to show that evil (and good) are not always where you expect them to be.

If the Others turn out to be a gang of one-dimensional voldemorts just so the great houses can overcome their differences and ally against their common enemy and then hold hands and sing kumbaya over their corpses, I think I'll puke a little.

Also, avoiding Godwin's Law by bringing up Stalin is kinda missing the point.

This was obviously a joke.

[solarbear]

Given Martin's love of Viking mythology, the Others are likely so alien from humans they might as well be evil. Think the armies that will come to end the universe in the last battle in Viking lore.

[Mumatil]

The gods are the puppeteers and the men are there marionettes.

The gods have plans of their own and use mankind to fight for and against them.

Or the universe or the many faced god just likes to clash with itself once inawhile.

Its just the theme, no one is really good or evil, its just the world we live in and the events that happen that pit men against each other as enemies and friends.(maybe if chance had decided differently, the relationships of groups to one another would be different.)

You know all that crap.

[surfKraken]

Honestly, I think GRRM means the Others to be used metaphorically. They represent threats that should not be ignored and really ought to bring everyone together.

I agree with this. The Others are coming. And when they come they will overrun the wall and start driving South likes its nobodys business, messing up $h!t right and left. It may be a carnage scenario.

If so it will be the one thing the seven Kingdoms needs to unite - a common enemy.

[Fennario]

This thread raises two points I've heard GRRM bring up. One, that all good or all bad characters are boring (which always sounds to me like a shot at the Dark One from the Wheel of Time, although he and Jordan respected each other's work as far as I know) and, two, that one of his inspirations was Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, in which the main villains, the Norns, who live in the frozen North, hate mankind, but are sort of sympathetic characters because they've been wronged in the past. I agree that there must be something more to be revealed about the Others, especially because their most obvious enemy -- dragons -- are, while potentially helpful in this war, also destructive, feared, etc.

Also, in Viking mythology, it's really just the ice giants who fight humans/gods at Ragnorak, along with the children of Loki (one of whom is the wolf Fenrir who devours everything -- Silmarillion anyone?), and both the giants and Loki have been, at various points, on at least co-existing terms with Odin and the rest of the Norse crew. Which, going along with the idea that Martin may use that archetype, actually plays in to the idea of the Others being more complicated than just ice-demons.

Of course, at the end of Ragnorak, everyone and everything is dead, except for two seeds that sprout into humans about a thousand years later....oops, sorry, spoiler alert!

[Rheagar Prime]

well we did see that in the history that they don't just killing humans i mean the 13th lord commander of the night watch fell for one and she produced children. I think there are others like this female one. I feel there is some hierarchy with them or some religion context that proclaims them to do what they don't. I just don't see them as the mindless wrights that they control, something is much more complex about them.

[Archana The Brown Walker]

I think the others are a lost (and forgotten) tribe of the wildings who moved to the land of always winter and adapted to the conditions there. This explains the fair complexion, tall figure, modified old tongue etc.

There are people in Thenn also right? Land of always winter might be marginally colder than Thenn and some tribes may have adapted to the situation there over the ages.

The recent generations of the others probably know as much about men as men know about them, i.e. not much.

[the_nights_baron]

i agree. i believe it is possible the others maybe fleeing sumthing themselves abd the Wall itself is possibly a piece of dark magic itself. check out this thread...

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/80112-crackpot-end-game-jojen-helps-destroys-the-neck-to/#entry4042271

[western wolf]

I must say i disagree with the thread originator. We haven't seen many others, that is true, but they certainly haven't been shy on butchering any humans they find. In fact, they aren't even really that afraid of humans, given that the one assaults Sam and essentially sits around waiting for Sam to gather what little courage he has (remember, he's a person FAMED for not having anything close to courage), and then, seeing Sam taking up an obsidian knife, just sort of stands there and is killed.

That kind of behavior smacks of arrogance that wouldn't be present if the other considered a human to be a threat.

I don't think there will be a peace; I think the Dragons will immolate the others and prove to be a weapon that they can't overcome.

[JonNonRegis]

I don't think we'll see the Others sitting down at a table with Jon, cutting business deals to exchange goods and services, ruffling the hair of adorable children, and buying cheese from the corner shop.

They're bad guys. They ride dead, intestines-dragging horses. Both times we've seen them, the only thing they did of note was kill people.

The question is not "Are they horrible bastards comfortable with the idea of exterminating conventional life in Westeros?" but "Is it possible for GRRM to give us such creatures in such a way that it won't seem like a cliche?"

I think the answer is yes. It comes down to their origin, concerning which GRRM has given us plenty of clues.

I'm genuinely surprised nobody on this site seems to have worked that out yet.

[Toccs]

I don't think there will be a peace; I think the Dragons will immolate the others and prove to be a weapon that they can't overcome.

That would be predictable, cheesy and reek of a deus ex machina considering tha Dragons weren't even in GRRM's original plan for the books.

The Dragons have been shown to be just as much of a negative and destructive force as the Others. It's about balance so fire can't triumph over ice and vice versa, they both have to go.

[western wolf]

That would be predictable, cheesy and reek of a deus ex machina considering tha Dragons weren't even in GRRM's original plan for the books.

The Dragons have been shown to be just as much of a negative and destructive force as the Others. It's about balance so fire can't triumph over ice and vice versa, they both have to go.

Actually I think Martin has tipped his hand in this.

In one of the books, Martin has a character state:

FIre Consumes, but Ice preserves. This is meant to explain how Aemon survived at the wall, but suddenly deteriorated after catching a chill once going south.

The others and their wights have already shown a weakness to fire. Dragons breathe fire. Dany has demonstrated control over all three dragons at one point, with only Drogon giving her problems.

I think you're totally wrong.

[Toccs]

Oh you sweet summer child. :P