Heresy 10

[Free Northman]

I started off this morning by saying no, but having had a bit more time to think about it I'm not so sure.

We've assumed because the Pact was said to have been made between the Children and the First men, that when the Greenseers and Wood Dancers met with the Chiefs and Heroes of the First Men on the island in the God's Eye, the Wood Dancers were warrior Children. This would of course imply that the Wood dancers were small in stature and therefore not comparable with the tall elegant Sidhe, but we've never actually met any Children identified as Wood Dancers. All we've seen are Greenseers or Singers.

However, when Osha and Maester Luwin are educating Bran as to what went down later, Maester Luwin is interupted just as he says that the Children fled beyond the Wall. What he might have gone on to say if he hadn't been interrupted is anybody's guess, but slightly earlier in the slightly ratty conversation Osha tells Bran that the Children, the Giants and the other old races went beyond the Wall. As I said above I don't see any reason why the Sidhe/White Walkers shouldn't be numbered amongst those other old races, and perhaps that's why they're the Others... the Children, the Giants and the Others.

If we set the question of size aside, then as we discussed long ago there are definite similarities both in the use of stealth armour and the fluid grace which could well earn them the Sidhe the name of Wood Dancers. Given we're not talking modern hi-tech the stealth armour itself is suggestive of the Sidhe - not being quite of this world but slipping between theirs and ours - or Martin's. And again there's the hollow hills and the barrow lands, which sound more like the home of the Sidhe than the Children.

The point I'm reaching towards is that in the beginning Westeros was inhabited by the Old Races, who included both the short-statured Children and the tall, elegant Sidhe, known to the First Men as the Wood Dancers, both - but not the Giants, who may have changed sides earlier (hence the our brothers and our bane comment) - concluded the Pact, but the Wood Dancers being the Sidhe weren't into peaceful co-existence except on their own terms, turning up now and again only to claim changelings and using the Long Winter as an opportunity to reclaim their lands and overlordship.

We certainly need to know more, but its striking how unconcerned the Children appear to be about the Others/Sidhe which would very strongly suggest they know them of old but don't fear them because they are one of the Old Races rather than some nameless horror lurking under the Ice.

Yes, the Others as one of the Old Races could work very well. Don't think the Wood Dancers as the Others work though. They kind of suggest a connection to nature and life in symbiosis with the woods. The Others seem to need extreme cold to survive, and appear to live in the Land of Always Winter, where you find no forests or even any vegetation at all.

The Wood Dancers simply appear to be the warrior faction of the Children, to go with the Singers and Greenseers.

[Black Crow]

Yes, the Others as one of the Old Races could work very well. Don't think the Wood Dancers as the Others work though. They kind of suggest a connection to nature and life in symbiosis with the woods. The Others seem to need extreme cold to survive, and appear to live in the Land of Always Winter, where you find no forests or even any vegetation at all.

Ah, but was it always so?

The Barrowland, the Fist and the other hollow hills suggest they once lived further south, before going beyond the Wall

[alienarea]

Ah, but was it always so?

The name implies this, doesn't it? ;-)

[Free Northman]

Ah, but was it always so?

The Barrowland, the Fist and the other hollow hills suggest they once lived further south, before going beyond the Wall

I think you are trying to find too direct a link between the Others and the Sidhe. They may resemble them in some ways, but clearly Martin has mixed and matched between the various legends, taking some characteristics of the Firbolg, Sidhe and Tuata de danan to create the Children, the Others the First Men and even the Roynar that burned their ships after landing in Westeros.

I think we just have to accept that the Hollow Hill part of the Sidhe legend has been transferred to the Children, while the menacing, graceful and dangerous part has been allocated to the Others.

Not everything is going to tie up exactly with the seperate legends.

[Black Crow]

I think we just have to accept that the Hollow Hill part of the Sidhe legend has been transferred to the Children, while the menacing, graceful and dangerous part has been allocated to the Others.

Not everything is going to tie up exactly with the seperate legends.

I agree, but nevertheless the Children, as I suppose is consistent with their short stature, appear to be associated with caves and tunnels deep under the earth, rather than the hollow hills and barrows normally associated with Sidhe/Faeries, especially when we've got Ghost's curious behaviour at the Fist. As a presumed "creature" of Bloodraven and the Children it shouldn't have bothered him if it was a hollow hill once occupied by the Children, but if it belonged to the Sidhe/Others/White Walkers that might be a different matter altogether.

[Frey Pie]

Perhaps they were once one race but the children stayed south for longer, while the Others went further and further North with a morphoilogical change overcoming them and the harsh conditions changing them to what we see today

Not saying i beleive it but i said id through her up anyway

[Stark@heart]

Thanks for the links, its great to see stories that may have influenced GRRM.

Crasters sons could be a take on changlings, instead of someone creeping in and switching babes, a babe in left out as an offering to become a changling/ something other than it is/human. Sometimes I have trouble "suspending believe" while reading a story, even ones set up in make believe worlds and changlings is one of the things I have trouble with. I hope GRRMs reveal makes it work for me :bowdown: If he can make me feel that Theon has suffered too much for his crimes, when I literally wished for him to be flayed for betraying Robb and Winterfell, then I'm sure he'll drop my jaw for me more than once in the coming books.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

If so this would explain their determination to exterminate the Children, but of course the North presents a problem since the Andals never conquered it yet the Children have gone.

When two civilizations come into direct contact, violence & conflict invariably ensues. Now, imagine those civilizations being made up of different species, one of which seems to possess supernatural powers capable of causing mass destruction. These further variances only amplify the tendency towards violence, as each species strives to establish itself as the predator in the standard Predator-Prey heirarchy.

Some other factor - religion, as you argue - may have intensified even further the violent collision of civilizations, but that violent conflict would have occurred regardless.

I can't seem to recall your specific suppositions on the relationships (temporal, physical, religious) between the Andals & the First Men, but by first-approximation analysis, I can tell you that the Andals and the First Men were themselves two competing civilizations. The peace that existed prior to Tohrenn bending the knee was tenuous at very best.

The one piece of information supporting the Andal/First Men 'alliance' is their apparent mutual support of the Night's Watch. I must admit that that is a compelling aberration, but I believe it can be explained by the severity of the lessons learned from the Long Night. I am of the opinion that the Long Night was conflict & slaughter on a heretofore unimagined scale. The experience left such a scar on the psyches & oral history of Children, FirstMen that they both supported the Watch, and the Andals followed suit in their time.

Something has been bothering me lately, and the above musings touch on it somewhat... I know why the First Men & the Children supported the Watch, but why did the Andals also support the Watch? The Long Night would not be part of any of their histories, oral or otherwise. Unless my understanding of the timeline is inaccurate - with the Long Night occurring prior to the Andal invasion, the Andals wouldn't have had any contact with the Others, would they? If that is the case, why did they also send levies to the Night's Watch? It seems curious that they would succour the defensive army that protected the First Men of the North. Certainly doesn't follow the 'Enemy of my Enemy...' maxim.

[Black Crow]

The one piece of information supporting the Andal/First Men 'alliance' is their apparent mutual support of the Night's Watch. I must admit that that is a compelling aberration, but I believe it can be explained by the severity of the lessons learned from the Long Night. I am of the opinion that the Long Night was conflict & slaughter on a heretofore unimagined scale. The experience left such a scar on the psyches & oral history of Children, FirstMen that they both supported the Watch, and the Andals followed suit in their time.

Something has been bothering me lately, and the above musings touch on it somewhat... I know why the First Men & the Children supported the Watch, but why did the Andals also support the Watch? The Long Night would not be part of any of their histories, oral or otherwise. Unless my understanding of the timeline is inaccurate - with the Long Night occurring prior to the Andal invasion, the Andals wouldn't have had any contact with the Others, would they? If that is the case, why did they also send levies to the Night's Watch? It seems curious that they would succour the defensive army that protected the First Men of the North. Certainly doesn't follow the 'Enemy of my Enemy...' maxim.

The way some of us have been looking at it is that the Watch didn't originate as defenders of the Wall and the Wall (being of Ice) wasn't built to protect Westeros but to separate the two realms. Everything about the Watch seems alien to the North - most of its personnel are from the south and not only followers of the Seven but sometimes actively suspicious of the Old Gods. The proposition is that there wasn't an alliance between the men of the North and the Andal kingdoms, but that the price of peace, however uneasy, was the breaking the Pact by expelling the Children from the North and admitting what we know as the Watch to make sure that they (and the Others/Sidhe if they knew of them) didn't come back.

[Black Crow]

Perhaps they were once one race but the children stayed south for longer, while the Others went further and further North with a morphoilogical change overcoming them and the harsh conditions changing them to what we see today

Not saying i beleive it but i said id through her up anyway

Yes and no. There's no reason to believe that the Children and the White Walkers/Sidhe were once one and the same. Apart from the differences Osha does speak of the Children, the Giants and the "other old races". That being said I think there are plenty of historical precedents to inspire GRRM where a people make peace, ie: in this case the Pact, but some who are dissatisfied either with the initial terms or the way it later turns out, take themselves off. The obvious parallels would be with the various Native American tribes, where peace treaties are signed but then factions take themselves off to parts unknown rather than abide by what they regard as humiliating terms.

In this case, we're told the Children and First Men forged the Pact and thereafter lived in harmony until the Andals came. However if we equate the White Walkers/Others with the Sidhe, they are a very proud and touchy lot and unlikely to knuckle down to the loss of so much of their former domain. I can easily see them - perhaps as Wood Dancers - agreeing the Pact, but then one fine morning abandoning their hollow hills and treking north to where they don't need to smell men or their fires.

[Black Crow]

And just to make post MM before I head off to work. The Icy form in which we currently see the White Walkers/Sidhe need not necessarily represent a physical change in their form. If they are Sidhe, then as we discussed above they may have a physical form in their own hollow hills but when entering the realm of men (and Children) they ride the wind as a mist and assume a corporeal form cobbled together from ice crystals. Perhaps if they originally lived in hollow hills further south, that corporeal form was defined by other things like pollen. dust or even leaves.

[Lummel]

Except that we know the physical form of the white walkers is more than ice crystals. From the description of the white walker killed by Sam we know that it has a bone structure.

ETA MM :cheers:

[Black Crow]

Except that we know the physical form of the white walkers is more than ice crystals. From the description of the white walker killed by Sam we know that it has a bone structure.

ETA MM :cheers:

:cheers:

True, but given the way it melts my take on it is that they replicate their true form using the mist of ice crystals.

[Free Northman]

The way some of us have been looking at it is that the Watch didn't originate as defenders of the Wall and the Wall (being of Ice) wasn't built to protect Westeros but to separate the two realms. Everything about the Watch seems alien to the North - most of its personnel are from the south and not only followers of the Seven but sometimes actively suspicious of the Old Gods. The proposition is that there wasn't an alliance between the men of the North and the Andal kingdoms, but that the price of peace, however uneasy, was the breaking the Pact by expelling the Children from the North and admitting what we know as the Watch to make sure that they (and the Others/Sidhe if they knew of them) didn't come back.

I disagree with this. If the signing of the Pact has survived from the Dawn Age in oral traditions, then any potential breaking of the Pact or resumption of hostilities with the Children in a much more recent time period would most certainly also have survived in the histories.

There is no hint of such an event, nor any hint of the Children as the "enemy, treacherous, etc." as would be the case if the victors wrote the history books.

Instead, the known history of the Children basically ends with the Pact.

In my view, the history of the Wall can be quite satisfactorily explained by linking it to the one part of your revised timeline that I agree with - the much later arrival of the Andals in Westeros.

If the Andals only arrived 4000 years ago - as Rodrik the Reader seemed to suggest, based on the so-called "True History", (which would fit with a time when the Valyrians might have started applying pressure on their traditional homeland in Essos) then I would argue that the reason Sam's list of Lord Commanders only covers the last 300 Commanders or thereabouts, is that before this time only the First Men manned the Wall and thus no written records were kept.

Furthermore, I would argue that once the Andals started manning the Wall as well - say about 1000 years after they first set foot in Westeros - this coincided with the commencement of the decline of the Watch, and the abandonment of the relationship with the Children, and the magical aspects of the Watch's duty.

The Watch really has nothing to do with the Andals, as they weren't around at the time of the Long Night, or the creation of the Wall. To them taking the Black probably became more of a form of exile or "a place to send unwanted prisoners etc.", rather than a duty of honour as it was when the First Men still maintained the Watch according to its founding traditions.

[Edwin Snow]

In regards to the White Walkers, and whomever they may be taking orders from or serve, I have a question. Is winter coming, "getting colder", because of the increased activity of the WW's or because winter is coming the activity of the WW's are increasing?

Mystical events have been increasing over time and I am wondering if it is a result of the creatures themselves or because of nature and the changing of the seasons? It seemed that because of the Dragons the power of magic in the world increased, but were the WW's increasing before the Dragons or because of the changing of seasons?

Is the increase in magic because the world itself is trying to come to an equilibrium? If that is the case then was the increase in magic in the world manipulated by something or someone in attempt to push their agenda? I would like to think that the WW's aren't mindless and if they are in a sense mindless themselves that they have someone behind them pulling the strings.

Or is all of this a delayed reaction to the historical invasions and additions to the land of Westeros that seems to be of importance. Is this a natural reaction of the world trying to come to equilibrium over time or is all of this a natural reaction of the world to find equilibrium because someone or something caused it to be thrown out of balance with in the recent timeline?

On a Side Note: I am going back and reading through Jon's chapters and I just noticed something because I am looking for small oddities noticed by Jon, but not expanded on. I am in a CotK in a Jon Chapter when the NW are at The Fist and ghost is leading Jon to the stash of Dragon Glass weapons.

Quote: The trees stood beneath him, warriors armored in bark and leaf, deployed in their silent ranks awaiting the command to storm the hill. Black, they seemed......it was only when his torchlight brushed against them that Jon glimpsed a flash of green.

It doesn't go any further than that and Jon doesn't seem to be perturbed by it either. Later on it says, "He was about to turn back when he glimpsed a flash of white off ahead" and he knows its Ghost as he chases after him back around towards The Fist. Then when he finally gets to Ghost and he is digging up what appears to be a freshly dug grave.

Is it weird that Jon spots the flash of green across the stream in the trees not far from the fist and ghost leads him in a circle back around to the cash of dragon glass? Could this possibly be a Wood Dancer? If it is a Wood Dancer, I would assume the flash of green being so close to the cash of Dragon Glass is an attempt to help the NW defend themselves against the oncoming onslaught from the WW's? The ground being freshly dug minutes after Jon spots a flash of green and the timing of Ghost's insistence for Jon to follow and the apparent run around ghost gives Jon to get to the stash of dragon glass.

Not sure if this incident has been discussed before, sorry if it has, I just caught it and found it to be relevant to our heretical discussions.

[Corm]

@Edwin Snow

I am of the opinion that the rise in magic caused the birth of dragons, not vice-versa. We know that the Others were mobilising before the dragons were born, even before they came into contact with Daenerys. And I agree with the idea that it's all due to the mismatched seasons.

On another idea, I think it is strange that we have yet to see the Others actually attack someone. The only times we have seen them it has been men who start the attack, not the White Walkers. With Wymar Royce, the WW even stops fighting and speaks when Ser Wymar stops swinging. Was he trying to reason with him? Unlikely because the group seems to have little qualms about butchering Royce afterwards, maybe they only started when the steel shattered because it is made of iron and could harm them?

Again with Small Paul he attacks first, the WW just defends itself. Is there some significance to this? I think it's unlikely because their minions are so intent on killing humans but it just struck me as strange, thought I'd see if anyone else had an opinion on it.

[Black Crow]

Its Small Paul, and yes we heretics have noted the rather less than savage behaviour

[Stark@heart]

Good find. If the Fist really belongs to the Others then the description of the trees "awaiting the command to storm the hill" may even be a foreshadowing of the real battle to come.

We know the Children can use the forces of nature to do their bidding, the Walkers only seem able to manipulate the cold (ice/water/air?) which still gives them a great advantage because too much cold is death to all warm blooded and green/living things.

So, will the Children unleash nature again? Will the Ents /Weirtrees march into battle? That could be cool but hard to believe in this series. I'd rather see them burst into flame on purpose and fall on the Fist/mounds. GRRM has stated more than once that this is a low magic series so, no need to worry about Ents but nature could play a bigger part in the battle to save the Wall/ Realm/ World than AA or TPTWP.

[Black Crow]

I disagree with this. If the signing of the Pact has survived from the Dawn Age in oral traditions, then any potential breaking of the Pact or resumption of hostilities with the Children in a much more recent time period would most certainly also have survived in the histories.

There is no hint of such an event, nor any hint of the Children as the "enemy, treacherous, etc." as would be the case if the victors wrote the history books.

Instead, the known history of the Children basically ends with the Pact.

Ah well that's where we have to disagree with you because Maester Luwin and others are quite specific about this. Along came the Andals and the Children fled above the Wall. Osha sames the same but of course adds the Giants and the "other old races". As we discussed a couple of threads back (or more) from the point of view of the Children and the Others arguing that the Pact wasn't broken because the Andals weren't the First Men is a matter of semantics, from their point of view it was men who slaughtered the Children and burned the weirwoods. However it also goes on from there because as we know the Andals did not conquer the North. The Children ought to have found a safe refuge in a kingdom of First Men - but they didn't, which is why the heresy holds that the First Men in the North broke the Pact and so betrayed the Children, forcing them to flee beyond the Wall. That's why we think that the Night's King story may be relevant as a legendary version of that betrayal by Stark of Winterfell.

[Stark@heart]

Its Small Paul, and yes we heretics have noted the rather less than savage behaviour

True, Small Paul wasn't moaning for brains or growling but... When someone you know to be dead comes straight at you with their new bright blue shining - if you let them get close enough to touch you then your that stupid person in horror movies that goes off by yourself to investigate a strange noise. Your dead, proving that it really is better to be safe than sorry. And Small Paul did go for Gilly and the baby "who stank of life" once he heard/smelled them. He was after the baby, a whole horde of the newly undead bright eyed zombies were drawn to the baby's smell.

So I wonder, is it all new life/babies they go after or is it only Crasters,( who has a cold smell') offspring that draw them?

From what we've been told of the Wildlings, it doesn't seem they would willingly give up their children. They seem to have lots of children and Torrmund speaks with love of his but there's also the fact they don't name them for years. That's not unheard of in our own past given the high mortality rate of children but could it also be a hold over from a time when any babies could be taken and now it's only Craster who's a Godly Man.

Today's Wildlings would rather been the knee that give up their babes/children to the Others and have been moving south to avoid them. Maybe that's what the Walkers are after, more kids, so they have to follow the "herd" south.

Makes me wonder what in all those barrows/mounds south of the Wall. Sleeping Others, waiting for enough babies to be gathered/transformed to "wake" them? :eek: And once again the smallfolk are screwed. If you have tall stone walls around you and (iron) weapons they may pass you by but if you live outside of those walls, your gonna be turned into a blue eyed zombie if you don't happen to have a handy baby laying around.