are the others realy that evil?

[Vampire Squid]

Well, some things can be inferred from context. Someone shouting and grasping a weapon is a pretty universal way of getting across the message of "Don't come near or I will use this".

His voice is "crack[ing] like a boy's" at the time, which I would read as "what the hell are you?" - I get your point, but I think it's ambiguous enough that all we can draw from the scene is "unintelligible words on both sides, duel ensues". That scene is, to me, too inconclusive.

[Jabronius Maximus]

I'm not sure how much weight to put on the show, but the White Walker looks straight at Sam and makes no move against him. While this doesn't prove they aren't evil, they likely have a goal other than exterminating humanity. And I saw Waymar as the aggressor in the AGOT prologue, but that's just me.

Someone mentioned that Mance gathered the wildlings to move south out of desperation. While not out of desperation, the Others could be gathering wights and moving south for another reason; my vote: Dragons. I think they are the North's version of Dragons, and have come out of hiding to face their eternal enemy. The Long Night happened 8000 years ago, and Valyrians discovered Dragons 5000 years ago. With the unreliable timeline thing, I wouldn't be surprised if Dragons came about at the same time the Others did during the Long Night.

Trouble is, during the Long Night the Others apparently got their asses handed to them and fled back north. Dragons flourished for a long time, while the Others licked their wounds. Now they're back at full power, and are finally making their move.

All this is still speculation, but I think a good thing about this is that Dany would end up being one of the main enemies :P . But seriously, she's at the helm of an oppressive, destructive force. The Others are also an oppressive, destructive force. And I think they'll meet on the Trident

[Kindly_Man]

They are bad if you are a human i am thinking.

[the trees have eyes]

Just checked what is in the books.

Prologue AGOT: Royce was the first one 'with sword in hand', he challenged the white walker "Dance with me then". In the show there is that bloody tableau of dead bodies and bodyparts and the child which was pinned upon a tree. In the novel there is none of such things, there are no dead bodies or bodyparts and there is no wightified scary girl.

ASOS Samwell I: Here we have the second and until now the last sighting of a white walker, this time a lone rider on a horse. It dismounts and stands on the snow. There is talk of its armour but nothing about a sword or other weapon. Small Paul "unslung the long-hafted axe strapped across his back" and challenges the white walker. He asks why it has hurt the horse, Mawney's horse. Then the sword of the white walker glows. It cuts off the head of the torch Grenn holds. Grenn flings what is left of the torch at the white walker, cursing, "as Small Paul charged in with his axe".

Then Small Paul is killed.

I read the prologue again.

Down below the lordling called out suddenly "Who goes there?". Will head uncertainty in the challenge....

The woods gave answer: the rustle of leaves, the icy rush of a stream, a distant hoot of a snowy owl.

The Others made no sound.

Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the woods. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning and the words seemed to freeze in his throat...

"Will, where are you?" Ser Waymar called up. "Can you see anything?". He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see.

Ashadow seemed to emerge from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce...

Will heard the breath go out of Waymar royce in a long hiss. "Come no further" the lordling warned. He threw the long sable cloak back over his shoulders, to free his arms for battle, and took his sword in both hands.

The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen.

Ser Waymar met him bravely "Dance with me then". He lifted his sword high over his head defiant...

The Other halted....For a heartbeat he dared to hope.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them, four, five...

The pale sword came shivering through the air.

Ser Waymar met it with steel....

When the blades touched, the steel shattered.

A scream echoed through the forest night and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces...

The watchers moved forward together as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell all in a deadly silence. It was cold butchery...Far below him he head their voices and laughter sharp as icicles....

Finally, his muscles cramping and his fingers numb with cold, he climbed down..

Will turned. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him...

The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw...

Will closed his eyes to prey. Long, elegant hands brushed his cheek then tightened around his throat."

The whole thing is too long to quote but other than GRRM writing a superb scene, full of palpable menace

1. Will and Royce are outnumbered and the Others surround them. Will being up a tree, they actually surround Royce, six of them. It's an ambush, not a parley.

2 Will and royce have no idea they are there until the Others approach them, the confrontation is entirely at the Others instigation and the situation is always within their control.

3. All Royce's gestures are defensive - "come no farther", awaiting the attack

4. The Other approaches him and does strike the first blow

5. After Royce's blinding the other five move in and butcher him, then laugh.

6. Royce becomes a wight and kills Will - do people still want to blame the COTF for the wights rather than the Others?

It's a seminal scene - the prologue is intended to set up the story's theme - and its pretty clear if the Others find people vulnerable they will kill them. Do you really disagree?

After the Fist of the first Men the survivors are fleeing to safety. No one stops because if they stop and fall behind outside the ring of torches they die. Sam's pov is "every now and then a terrible sceam rang out from behind [sic]". It's pretty obvious if you fall behind you die and when Gren, Small Paul and Sam do fall behind it's an Other that comes upon them. Why do you think the Other approaches them? To help? He kills Small Paul easily enough and without trying to fight defensively at all, it's a straightforward one thrust kill and he lops the head off Gren's torch. It's pretty obvious the Others and / or wights are stalking the NW, picking off the stragglers. Seems really strange to me to think their intentions are something different. It's really looking for something that isn't there.

[FanTasy]

As said, I believe the Others are what GRRM himself says: "inhuman" and "dangerous". And they are not there to bake cookies. But that doesn't automatically make them the great evil force that wants to exterminate mankind, or as they were called up thread "vermin". We don't know if they want to destroy mankind. At least not yet.

[Sterling]

Just posted this in a different thread. This one's probably the better choice haha

I've only read through once so I don't remember everything to perfect detail, but I was just wondering about all the Azor Ahai prophecies. I want to say that they all are more or less related to or come from the Red Priests and are more associated with a savior coming to Westeros who is inspired by R'hllor rather than the great Other.

Since there aren't any "White Priests" ie. priests preaching to follow the great Other, maybe it could be possible to go ahead and assume that they are NOT necessarily the bad guys, that the Others are just the tools of the great Other like the dragons are R'hllor, and that maybe there is also a savior for the Others (Bran?).

I mean seeing into flames to know what comes in the future and seeing through the eyes of weirwoods to see the past are kind of equal, if not opposites, and seeing as R'hllor followers do the former, why would it not be plausible that the Other followers do the latter?

I don't know but I wanted to see what other people had to say.

EDIT: I didn't mean to say that because there weren't white priests you could assume they weren't the bad guys, that doesn't make sense. What I meant to say was that because there aren't white priests, we don't know about their ultimate goals or if there are any prophecies regarding them and what will end up happening to them.

[Eyron]

Beautiful and ethereal does not necessarily mean non-evil. But I think that this discussion about morality is a red herring anyway. It is quite possible that the Others are fairly decent as species go, no worse than human at least, and still peaceful coexistence is impossible.

So maybe it's true, maybe it's the cold that is the real enemeny, the cold that cause the Others, not the other way round....I really like that theory, I'm not a fan of unmotivated evil for evil's sake à la Sauron either .... that still excludes the Others as potential allies. They need the Cold and humans can't bear it.

As to the last part, that is very possible. Unless there are people who can stand the cold, like another of GRRM's story characters Adara, from the Ice Dragon story. I don't think it will be all the same as in that story but since there is an occation when Dany is unburned, there could be an ice equivalent at some point, perhaps from magic that time as well. This does not change the fact that the cold will probably kill a lot of people, but it may give someone a chance to learn what the hell those Others want. What if all they want is humans gone from Beyond the Wall, their lands? Done and done :) Jon solved that, almost in any case.

Beautiful and etc does indeed not mean good, or not evil, but I wanted to throw that in to the discussion since it is relevant to fleshing the Others out, and it reflects how the author thinks about them. I have read so many posts about how they look and act that are completely wrong that I felt this may be unknown to many.

[the trees have eyes]

His voice is "crack[ing] like a boy's" at the time, which I would read as "what the hell are you?" - I get your point, but I think it's ambiguous enough that all we can draw from the scene is "unintelligible words on both sides, duel ensues". That scene is, to me, too inconclusive.

I would be preapred to entertain this if there were not five more Others surrounding Royce who he does not even see and who move in and join in the butchery when he is blinded. Duel, my ass. He is a dead man, its just a question of whether he gets to take any of them down with him first.

Also we know that normal steel is useless agasint the Others (Sam finds this in the library at Castle Black I believe), only dragonsteel being effective. I think your "duellist" knew this.

[Neo]

Yeah, let's just tell Mother Mole and everyone dying at Hardhome to stop bitching about how bad things are becuase GRRM having developed interesting and complex human characters means extermniantion is a nuanced concept open to all kinds of different interpretations.

Dead is dead, surely?

The First Men tried to exterminate the Children of the Forest before the signing of the Pact. The fact that the Others (in your opinion) are trying to 'exterminate' humanity doesn't necessarily mean they are evil. Species fight for survival and dominance against other species.

I'm not sure what the dead reference is for either. I don't think GRRM has ever referred to the Others as being 'dead'; I've always believed they are sentient beings.

[FanTasy]

Why do you think the Other approaches them? To help? He kills Small Paul easily enough and without trying to fight defensively at all, it's a straightforward one thrust kill and he lops the head off Gren's torch. It's pretty obvious the Others and / or wights are stalking the NW, picking off the stragglers. Seems really strange to me to think their intentions are something different. It's really looking for something that isn't there.

Yes, you're right, he kills Small Paul very effectively, after Small Paul charged at him with his axe.

I'm not saying this is right, I just re-read and copy'd what is in the text after somebody up thread stated that the first move to attack was not done by the Nights Watch. Of course texts are open for interpretation.

I don't know why they were approached by that lone rider. It is not explained in the text.

I don't know what caused the screams of the poor people that were left behind. They may have been attacked by white walkers or they may have been attacked by wights. GRRM is not telling us, we don't see it through Sam's eyes, nobody survives to tell Sam what he saw. So it's up to interpretation.

[Eyron]

Consider this scenario, the lands of Always winter goes down to the Wall, that is it's southern border as per an old pact.

The Others wake up or go south to check their estate, and behold it is crawling with puny humans. The humans have breached the pact and invaded the lands that belong to winter. They have settled on the property of the Others and the Old races. Go away puny humans! Stop eating our animals!

[the trees have eyes]

As said, I believe the Others are what GRRM himself says: "inhuman" and "dangerous". And they are not there to bake cookies. But that doesn't automatically make them the great evil force that wants to exterminate mankind, or as they were called up thread "vermin". We don't know if they want to destroy mankind. At least not yet.

If you are prepared to dismiss the Long Night and the story of the Last Hero and the prophecies of the Prince that was Promised and the War for the Dawn as unproven, I guess you can. But it's rather like the question posed by one reporter to the UN during the Rwandan genocide when people weren't prepared initially to accept what was happening, "How many confirmed acts of genocide does it take to acknowledge that a campaign of genocide is occuring? [sic]". Would Hardhome be enough or just another act?

[NotSoSilentSister]

As to the last part, that is very possible. Unless there are people who can stand the cold, like another of GRRM's story characters Adara, from the Ice Dragon story. I don't think it will be all the same as in that story but since there is an occation when Dany is unburned, there could be an ice equivalent at some point, perhaps from magic that time as well.

That might be a reason why they seem to be trying to breed with humans (Old Nan's rape stories that ight not have been unconsensual after all, the Night-King-marriage) and could also explain the changling thing - maybe they are trying to genetically engineer a breed of humans that can survive the cold? Maybe humans are their environmental conservation project? They have not been very successful yet, though.

At any rate, the last book is titled a Dream of Spring, so I think that replacing humanity with more cold-resistant breed will turn out quite unneccessary. I do think that winter will end, and the others will be marginalized again. But we might end up feeling just as sad about their disapperance as we will feel about the demise of the dragons. G.R.R.M promised a bitter sweet ending after all.

[Neo]

I would be preapred to entertain this if there were not five more Others surrounding Royce who he does not even see and who move in and join in the butchery when he is blinded. Duel, my ass. He is a dead man, its just a question of whether he gets to take any of them down with him first.

Also we know that normal steel is useless agasint the Others (Sam finds this in the library at Castle Black I believe), only dragonsteel being effective. I think your "duellist" knew this.

The duel is clearly a one-on-one battle. The surrounding Others watch without interfering, only to join in once Royce is beaten. You call this 'butchery' but it can easily be interpreted as putting Royce out of his misery.

GRRM seems to intentionally make things unclear and open to interpretation. I certainly don't think things are as clear-cut and simplistic as the Others being 'evil' as this would pretty much contradict everything he stands for as a fantasy writer.

[NotSoSilentSister]

Consider this scenario, the lands of Always winter goes down to the Wall, that is it's southern border as per an old pact.

The Others wake up or go south to check their estate, and behold it is crawling with puny humans. The humans have breached the pact and invaded the lands that belong to winter. They have settled on the property of the Others and the Old races. Go away puny humans! Stop eating our animals!

if that is the case, they will just stop at the wall and everything will be peachy and Cersei will have been right all along about not taking the threat seriously at all. Somehow I don't think that's how it's going to go down.

[Neo]

If you are prepared to dismiss the Long Night and the story of the Last Hero and the prophecies of the Prince that was Promised and the War for the Dawn as unproven, I guess you can. But it's rather like the question posed by one reporter to the UN during the Rwandan genocide when people weren't prepared initially to accept what was happening, "How many confirmed acts of genocide does it take to acknowledge that a campaign of genocide is occuring? [sic]". Would Hardhome be enough or just another act?

It would be just as bad to dismiss those myths as it would be to place blind faith in their reliability.

GRRM has said himself that there is dispute as to their accuracy. They are myths that are steeped in over 8,000 years of history. I think it would be difficult to use them as irrefutable proof about the nature and morality of the Others.

Also, you keep mentioning Hardhome, but we don't actually know what is going on there. It is all very vague at this point.

[Eyron]

That might be a reason why they seem to be trying to breed with humans (Old Nan's rape stories that ight not have been unconsensual after all, the Night-King-marriage) and could also explain the changling thing - maybe they are trying to genetically engineer a breed of humans that can survive the cold? Maybe humans are their environmental conservation project? They have not been very successful yet, though.

Well, perhaps :D The point for me is that we don't know what they want, and I don't think they are killing for the fun of it. They have some agenda, whatever it is, and I think it is related to humans, or other magical creatures like the dragons. So to me whatever it will be, it will almost certainly not be about extermination, but something else.

At any rate, the last book is titled a Dream of Spring, so I think that replacing humanity with more cold-resistant breed will turn out quite unneccessary. I do think that winter will end, and the others will be marginalized again. But we might end up feeling just as sad about their disapperance as we will feel about the demise of the dragons. G.R.R.M promised a bitter sweet ending after all.

Hm, it is called a Dream of Spring, so there will at least be hope for a spring to come, and perhaps even signs of it. A dream suggests to me that it has not come yet. I think it could suggest that the Others will return to theirs or be defeated, but that winter will remain a while, it is a natural season after all.

[the trees have eyes]

The First Men tried to exterminate the Children of the Forest before the signing of the Pact. The fact that the Others (in your opinion) are trying to 'exterminate' humanity doesn't necessarily mean they are evil. Species fight for survival and dominance against other species.

I'm not sure what the dead reference is for either. I don't think GRRM has ever referred to the Others as being 'dead'; I've always believed they are sentient beings.

IIRC the First Men were frightened of the faces in the trees so cut the weirwoods down. Knowing a little bit more about the weirwoods from Bran's chapters we can understand why the COTF were horrified and went to war. I agree that the fighting was brutal and dominance / survival struggles usually are but we understand the motivations of both the First Men and children who did eventually reach a peace in the pact until the andals came and screwed it all up again.

But the Others are portrayed as something far more sinister than the children and giants: there is no apparent motive (although one may be given, we have had 5 books seeing the relentless march south and hostiity), using necromancy to raisie dead people and animals who kill anything living is hardly a sign of benevolence.

When I said dead is dead I meant the people at Hardhome are going die. They desparately want to live but they are going to die and us debating whether the Others are evil or "misunderstood" isn't going to have much relevance for a few thousand corpses. Corpses, incidentally, that will be coming south to assault the "realms of men", the very thing Jon was trying to forestall with the rescue mission.

[Eyron]

if that is the case, they will just stop at the wall and everything will be peachy and Cersei will have been right all along about not taking the threat seriously at all. Somehow I don't think that's how it's going to go down.

Yes, I don't think this is what will happen. But I don't think there are more evidence to the other scenarios. This scenario is plausible considering what we know.

[NotSoSilentSister]

If you are prepared to dismiss the Long Night and the story of the Last Hero and the prophecies of the Prince that was Promised and the War for the Dawn as unproven, I guess you can. But it's rather like the question posed by one reporter to the UN during the Rwandan genocide when people weren't prepared initially to accept what was happening, "How many confirmed acts of genocide does it take to acknowledge that a campaign of genocide is occuring? [sic]". Would Hardhome be enough or just another act?

Can we be sure that Hardhome was a work of the Others though? The initial Doom of Hardhome might have well been something quite different (related to fire, if I remember correctly, so not very Other-esque), and the current crisis there might be related to repercussions of the Doom (the place is said to be haunted by ghosts).

I'm also willing to entertain the notion that Wrights are not deliberately created by the Others, but by a more abstract magic that fuels both phenomena, in which Hardhome might be a Wright-thing, not an Other thing per se. Wrights also attack when Others are not around.

To me, the more damning evidence against the Others is the _current_ apparent preference of the COTF and the giants to side with the humans against the Others instead of the other way round. The fact that the humans themselves have such a bad track record with respecting other races right to exist, makes this even more damning, as the Others are apparently considered worse. (This is happening right now, so the argument about the unreliabilty of history and legend does not apply).

That said, we don't really know about the sincerity of the COTF's motives when seemingly protecting Bran against the Others - it might well be a just a trick - but the Giants at least seem to be quite sincere about their preference of men. Then again the Giants may be simply mistaken about what's in their best interest. If we don't assume that they are intrinsically more stupid than other races, their preference however should indicate at least a little bit about the Other's potential for peaceful coexistence.