are the others realy that evil?

[danm_999]

We don't actually know that though. We've got the stories about the Long Night and such from certain human POVs. We all know how Martin likes the unreliable narrator device. Do I think the Others want to hug kittens and sit down for tea. No. However, I will argue we don't know enough about their motivations to slap the label "evil" on them.

If we were relying purely on myth and legend, perhaps yes.

But since we know giants at present are fleeing south, and from what we know from Leaf, we know that the Others are currently hostile to both the COTF and the giants. So that's not a myth.

[danm_999]

After the CotF were almost wiped out. And they seemed to get the shiny prize of living beyond the Wall. And we just don't know if any attempts were made to broker a deal between the Others and humans (I'm not arguing for or against that premise). We just don't have enough information to make assumptions about certain things.

It's not about assumptions. The fact that the COTF and men were capable of negotiating suggests an equivilancy we've never seen the Others display with any other sentient race.

[FanTasy]

I'm afraid after the ending of Season 2 of the show there is a strong visual image of the white walkers, herding a vast horde of wights towards the Fist. When reading the novels we only meet a white walker twice. At the first sighting they kill after been challenged (prologue AGOT). The second sighting is when Sam kills the one who dismounts from his horse, while it is not clear what he wants to do. The violence we read is done by wights. There is a strong suggestion by the tales of Old Nan, and now fortified by that image in the show, that the white walkers are responsible for the wightifying of those poor men and beasts. We haven't read proof though (although I think they are responsible for it).

[E-Ro]

I agree with danm the first men stoped the war and created a treaty with the cotf, the others have not even attempted a dialogue with humans.

[NotSoSilentSister]

Yes, men too have been horrible to the COTF and the giants. And after all this, both COTF and giants still see it as their best bet to side with the humans against the Others. No matter how genocidal humans are, the Others seem to be worse.

Also, the Others are not just killers, they are also rapists. Stories about them hunting women on big spiders might just be slander, granted, but if there's something to it, that also speaks against the "indifferent force of nature" hypothesis. Killing might be about mere survival, but rape? Rape as a strategy of war always has an element of humiliation and demoralisation. (I would not attach so much significance to the mocking in the first prologue though - just because it sounded mocking to the victim, does not mean that it was intended as mockery by the killers). Then again, it is possible that the Others have no other way to procreate - maybe all Others are actually half-human. But that would make their inability to empathize even more damning. It would put the more in the Bolton/Frey-corner rather than the "impossibly alien, therfore beyond good and evil"-category.

At any rate, their genocidal tendencies show that they have great capacity for evil. So have humans. Like us, they also might have great capacity for good. Maybe the Others have among themselves a perfectly just and democratic and enlightened society and live in peace and harmony among themselves and produce great art, etc. They tend to view other life-forms as vermin that has to be exterminated; so do we, occasionally. Still most of us think that humanity, wretched as it is, has its redeeming qualities. So might the Others.

It's just completly irrelevant from the perspective of the vermin. And I think that we are supposed to sympathise with the vermin here.

[Castel]

Also, the Others are not just killers, they are also rapists. Stories about them hunting women on big spiders might just be slander, granted, but if there's something to it, that also speaks against the "indifferent force of nature" hypothesis.

Say what now? Putting aside the extremely dubious claims made by Old Nan, where does it say that they hunted women specifically to rape them?

[FanTasy]

Say what now? Putting aside the extremely dubious claims made by Old Nan, where does it say that they hunted women specifically to rape them?

And to add: if so, where do they differ from what humans do, the Cleganes, the Rorge and Biters. Or the Dothraki, who use rape as a weapon, who force their seed upon the women of the Lamb people as a weapon of war, to 'honor' them with it?

ETA How could I forget this shiny example of humanity: how does this differ from what Ramsay and his friends do?

[Vampire Squid]

Entirely evil? Doubt it. Partly a personal revulsion to inherently evil species, partly the fact that we've seen so little of them that we can't really judge. Hostile to humans doesn't mean inherently evil, necromancy certainly doesn't, and for some reason they decided to fight a duel with Waymar Royce rather than kill him outright, so at least one group seems to show some degree of respect for their enemies (alternatively they were just sadistically toying with him, but why assume the worst in people unnecessarily?).

That being said, neither side has (so far) demonstrated any willingness even to learn each other's languages, let alone talk things through (well, except Jon Snow, but that hasn't gone anywhere yet), and it's possible that the Others require a climate too inhospitable for human/giant/CotF survival (and vice versa), but without knowing why they want to kill/drive away all non-Others they've come across (except Craster) we can't really come to any conclusion.

[NotSoSilentSister]

Say what now? Putting aside the extremely dubious claims made by Old Nan, where does it say that they hunted women specifically to rape them?

And to add: if so, where do they differ from what humans do, the Cleganes, the Rorge and Biters. Or the Dothraki, who use rape as a weapon, who force their seed upon the women of the Lamb people as a weapon of war, to 'honor' them with it?

ETA How could I forget this shiny example of humanity: how does this differ from what Ramsay and his friends do?

Oh, I was not arguing that they are necessarily _worse_ than humans. (May I quote myself "That puts them in the corner of Freys/Boltons" .....Also numerous instances of "So do humans", etc.). The COTF and the giants seem to think they are, but we don't exactly know for what reason.

I also acknowledge the possiblity that the stories may not be true.

My point was only that neither "indifferent force of nature, beyond good and evil" nor "just another fraction in the game of thrones" seem to be the right category. The Others are not just an indifferent force of nature, if the stories of actively malicous actions are true (and it's not just Old Nan, the Wildlings have similar stories; also the baby-stealing business is verfied fact and it's also not quite compatible with "indifferent force of nature"). They are not just another fraction in the Game of Thrones because they cannot be negotiated with.

[NotSoSilentSister]

I kind of like the theory that they require a climate incompatible with other life forms. Maybe their murder spree is a form of mercy killing? Now that they feel that the long winter is coming, they slaughter everything they come across to spare it the more gruesome fate of freezing and starving?

[FanTasy]

They are not just another fraction in the Game of Thrones because they cannot be negotiated with.

Possibly, but we do not know this. We don't know what caused the Long Night to end. If it was the Last Hero and / or the Children of the Forest who forced the white walkers to perish or return to the Land of Always Winter, that they burned all that was wightified. They may have sat down and negotiated. We just don't know what happened and the sources we have may not be very reliable or may have been distorted because it was so long ago.

[Swordsaint]

If you want to pretend the Others aren't evil, you need to consider the relationship the Others have with all other sentient species.

Obviously, they have a terrible relationship with humans that has forced a mass exodus of the Free Folk. Include to that the fact that they've also forced an exodus of giants, meaning that they've also been killing and terrorising them too. In addition, they've always warred, in the past, and at present, with the Children of the Forest. That's 0/3.

Now consider that even mankind has managed co-existence with the Children of the Forest and the giants for millenia, and you begin to get an idea of the Other's genocidal tendecies eclipse even that of mankind's. The only examples we have of cooperation between Others and non-Others are the Night's King, so old a tale as to be of dubious accuracy, and Craster's sons, in which case it's not clear exactly what's happening.

All depends on your point of view. From the Other's point of view they're 3/3. What do all three species have in common? All of them are warm blooded.

Incoming spoiler theory:

We know all magic in Westeros comes from blood. My theory is that the fewer warm blooded creatures that are in the world, the longer Winter will last. This to me makes them more of a natural enemy then an evil one. They're a sentient species. So not every one of them have the same goals in mind. That is the reason for the duel in the first chapter, and stories like the Night King, Cold Hands, etc. I could elaborate much further, including R'hllor, the truth of the Targs, etc. but I do not want to ruin the whole story for everyone despite my spoiler warning.

[Kittyhat]

We have no idea. That's the only accurate answer to the OP's question. Whether the Others have a coherent and justifiable motivation for their actions or are just all "RAWR KILL HUMANS RAWR," we just don't know. Not yet.

Insufficient data to answer the question.

[Associate Maester]

Yes, men too have been horrible to the COTF and the giants. And after all this, both COTF and giants still see it as their best bet to side with the humans against the Others. No matter how genocidal humans are, the Others seem to be worse.

Also, the Others are not just killers, they are also rapists. Stories about them hunting women on big spiders might just be slander, granted, but if there's something to it, that also speaks against the "indifferent force of nature" hypothesis. Killing might be about mere survival, but rape? Rape as a strategy of war always has an element of humiliation and demoralisation. (I would not attach so much significance to the mocking in the first prologue though - just because it sounded mocking to the victim, does not mean that it was intended as mockery by the killers). Then again, it is possible that the Others have no other way to procreate - maybe all Others are actually half-human. But that would make their inability to empathize even more damning. It would put the more in the Bolton/Frey-corner rather than the "impossibly alien, therfore beyond good and evil"-category.

At any rate, their genocidal tendencies show that they have great capacity for evil. So have humans. Like us, they also might have great capacity for good. Maybe the Others have among themselves a perfectly just and democratic and enlightened society and live in peace and harmony among themselves and produce great art, etc. They tend to view other life-forms as vermin that has to be exterminated; so do we, occasionally. Still most of us think that humanity, wretched as it is, has its redeeming qualities. So might the Others.

It's just completly irrelevant from the perspective of the vermin. And I think that we are supposed to sympathise with the vermin here.

We don't know they view humans or other creatures. We have nothing from their POV. As for the point people make about communicating with them. Again, we don't know that there weren't attempts in the past. What we do know is language is an apparent difficulty. I'm also pretty sure that when the NW went out looking for the Wildlings and the Others that dialogue was in mind.

[zippykeno]

I think we don't know enough to say if they are truly evil, or just brainless monsters out for making friends. Maybe with enough brains to know friend from foe and to be able to hunt for them.

I think the WW are just brainless and are controlled by some other force to do their (evil) bidding

[FanTasy]

I think we don't know enough to say if they are truly evil, or just brainless monsters out for making friends. Maybe with enough brains to know friend from foe and to be able to hunt for them.

I think the WW are just brainless and are controlled by some other force to do their (evil) bidding

Well, for lack of more information than the books provide at this point, I'll stick with what GRRM himself said: 'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.’

[NotSoSilentSister]

Possibly, but we do not know this. We don't know what caused the Long Night to end. If it was the Last Hero and / or the Children of the Forest who forced the white walkers to perish or return to the Land of Always Winter, that they burned all that was wightified. They may have sat down and negotiated.

It's possible, but unlikely. Because if the End of the Long Night was really a result of negotiation, the Others seem to suck at it. They were winning this thing! They had all the bargaining chips one could ever dream of! And yet the confrontation ended with them being basically exiled and kept away from the main part of the continent and the humans being able to utterly forget about their existence.

But "They cannot be negotiated with" was careless wording, I admit. In fact there have been two recorded instances of cooperation between men and Others: The Night King and whatever Craster's deal was. Still, if that's the model of cooperation the Others have in mind, that does not give a lot of cause for hope, does it? It always involved guys selling out their fellow humans. Does not seem like a sustainable model.

Again, none of that means that the Others have to be utterly evil. They just seem to be utterly incompatible.

[ser sean of hamill]

mabey the others belive that they are better than humans and just vue us as livesttok in that case they would not be evil. another one is that they may veiw humanity as evil as humanity veiws them. they also may belive that they are helping people by turning them into wights it is imposible to say but i higly dought they are evil in the scence of the word they are like a cat killing a mouse

[Bride of Winter]

I don't think we can fault the Others for not trying to negotiate with the people. For all we know, they could have made attempts to communicate, and even if not, can you blame them if it's basically a knee-jerk reaction on the humans part to [a] deny the Others' existence avoid them at all costs, or [c] try to kill them on sight? Yes, they seemed pretty hellbent on killing someone all of the two times we saw Others in the series, but just like Others may kill humans naturally, it's the same thing with people who see Others. Do you honestly think an Other can just walk out of the forest and a man of the Nights Watch would wait to listen to what they have to say? I'm not saying it's just some huge misunderstanding and both sides should bake cakes and hug it out, but it's all from a subjective point of view. I'm sure the Others have a reason to kill humans (it's established that they are a completely sentient race, after all). Even if it's not a good one, any logical standpoint behind their destruction for me rules them out as black and white "baddies" in my book.

And honestly I don't see what makes their killing so much worse than humans'. If there was any point it seemed like GRRM was trying to make in this series, it seems like it's that humans can be just as bad as the monsters. Frankly, I would choose being killed by an Other over being a Red Wedding casualty any day.

[Bride of Winter]

Incoming spoiler theory:

We know all magic in Westeros comes from blood. My theory is that the fewer warm blooded creatures that are in the world, the longer Winter will last. This to me makes them more of a natural enemy then an evil one. They're a sentient species. So not every one of them have the same goals in mind. That is the reason for the duel in the first chapter, and stories like the Night King, Cold Hands, etc. I could elaborate much further, including R'hllor, the truth of the Targs, etc. but I do not want to ruin the whole story for everyone despite my spoiler warning.

By all means don't feel obligated to explain further if you don't want to, but I just wanted to let you know that your theory sounds really interesting! I'm wondering what "the truth of the Targs" could possibly mean. :P