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The Great Other


Grimwolfe

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Ok so this has been bugging me for a while now. Why does every one assume the others are led by or spawned by some Great Other? All we have heard of the evil of the Red God faith is that The great other is the antagonistic deity to R'hllor. I see no evidence of it having any relation to the others other than name yet people keep brining it up.

The only possible connection i could see is Azor Azai defeated the others, and Melisandre keeps referencing him. But the great other is just that faiths equivalent of the stranger, or the storm god. Just because the others and AA are connected, does not mean that 'The Great Other' is an actual person or being, just another religious deity. Or am i missing something?

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It's important to remember that the word Other is not an actual name in either The Great Other or The Others, it's just a placeholder name. I've never thought that there was any connection between the two, I think the word Other is a red herring.

If we assume everyone who has been called Other is connected to The Others then what does that say for "the other Baratheon brother" Stannis or "the other Stark boy" Bran or Rickon?

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Well r'hllor is the God of fire. And the great other is the god of winter, and the others come from the land of always winter????

If he isn't the Others leader, he must at least be there God.

R'Hllor is the God of light and the Great Other is the god of darkness. Nothing to do with winter in there.

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I think the individual gods (the Other, the Storm God, the Stranger, the Faceless God, He Who Shall Not be Named) may all point towards the same overarching principle that the books seem to wrestle with: universal death and decay. I don't necessarily see the Great Other as a direct or literal 'god' of the Others, but rather as a more abstract force of death, just as the Others/White Walkers are death-in-the-flesh in some sense.

I think Melisandre is 'onto something' through her faith in the Red God, just as the Faith is 'onto something' when relating to the Stranger: they are different responses to the same phenomenon. But I also think that Melisandre is misguided in important ways. She's right in identifying the key danger - the Others, winter and darkness - but her own fanaticism clouds her judgment.

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Right now, it seems like the Great Other is a deity, just like the Old Gods, The Seven, the Faceless Gods and all the rest. The Rep Priests always preach that he's the enemy of R'hllor, who is the only God who has been proven to have power. Whether it's the ability to see the future in the flames, or miraculously heal injuries with fire or even bring people back from the dead, the Red Priests gained their power from him.

So, I think that the Great Other also exists, and is contrary to everything that R'hllor is associated with. R'hllor represents Fire, the Other represents Ice and cold, R'hllor represents life, the Other represents death etc. So, maybe the Others are his agents, because as much as we know about them so far, they want to destroy mankind.

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I think the assumption comes from the fact that most forces and giant armies are usually led by a leader with deviant wants.

And the army of Others tends to fit that image.

But there is no inclination to assume that there is an overlord of Others.

Its simply the answer to the question of who leads them.

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Toccs are we reading the same books???

I can't be bothered to find a quote but if you can't find the links between r'hllor, fire and summer and the great other coldness and winter you must be moonboy born again

R'Hllor = God of Light, The Great Other = God of Darkness.

Can I see how that could be interpreted as summer and winter?, sure. Is it ever explcitily stated that the R'Hllor faith has any beliefs regarding summer and winter, no it is not.

That's what a red herring is all about.

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R`hollor and the other gods are just names people call out to justify their actions.

I think we will never find out the exact identity of the others and their leader (because that is what makes them scarier). And they cannot be terminally destroyed , because otherwise the world loses it`s balance.

At the moment I imagine Darkstar as the the Great Other, as "he is of the night" :)

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... The Rep Priests always preach that he's the enemy of R'hllor, who is the only God who has been proven to have power. Whether it's the ability to see the future in the flames, or miraculously heal injuries with fire or even bring people back from the dead, the Red Priests gained their power from him....

That's not necessarily true. The Old Gods have proven to have power. There's greendreamers, greenseers, wargs, etc. There are the wights and something unrelated to R'hllor is reanimating the dead. Pray to the Many-Faced God and he will grant the gift of death. The moonsingers, who Mirri Maz Duur studied with, can apparently sing the hatching of a dragon egg.

With the R'hllor followers, like Mel, Thoros and Moqorro, most of the things they do is via glamour and magic, not by having the gift of a deity bestowed upon them.

_______

I have always had a tiny crackpot idea that the Unsullied Goddess, She Whose Name Shall Not Be Told to Non-Unsullied, is actually the antithesis to R'hllor...meaning the Unsullied are the enemy of those who worship fire. The Unsullied have the essence of the life - their manhoods- cut and tossed on fire, their training includes tortures like being made to walk on hot coals and stand in blistering heat. They honor the goddess by purifying themselves in water each day. Water is obviously in stark contrast to fire.

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the great other is either going to turn out tobe like R'hillor and we never actually see him/her, or my more crackpot thinking , its the last greenseer .

cant help but feel we are being lined up for a old gods vs the lord of light scenario , and i think the old gods were just greenseer's who helped the first men by communicating through the weirwoods with them , but thats been lost over time and there now just thought of as some form of gods to pray to .

we are led to belive the great other is the opposite to R'hillor , but you couldnt exactly say at this time that followers of R'hillor are on the side of good .

i cant accept that "the others" are some generic evil enitity thats only intent on causing mischief , i think there is some twist coming somewhere down the line with the greenseers, COTF , and others all being connected and on a similar wavelength

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have always had a tiny crackpot idea that the Unsullied Goddess, She Whose Name Shall Not Be Told to Non-Unsullied, is actually the antithesis to R'hllor...meaning the Unsullied are the enemy of those who worship fire. The Unsullied have the essence of the life - their manhoods- cut and tossed on fire, their training includes tortures like being made to walk on hot coals and stand in blistering heat. They honor the goddess by purifying themselves in water each day. Water is obviously in stark contrast to fire.

So does that mean that Varys might worship the same god as he said he hates magic because of his castration. Just a mad idea....

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