Heresy 39

[Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik]

So both women have seen the White Walkers. Did they remain unharmed because they were

a) hiding

B) protected by Craster's place

c) women

?

D: Produce children that the white walkers want?

[Capon Breath]

Not sure I agree that Will, Gared & Ser Waymar aren't scared of the White walkers in the prologue or that they only get scared once the dead start rising.

At the beginning of the prologue....

Will could sense something else in the older man. You could taste it, a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear....he was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now, and the endless dark wilderness that the Southron called the haunted forest held no more terrors for him. Until tonight. Something was different tonight...

Before they encounter anything and there are no wights.....

Will could feel it. Four years in the nights watch and he had never been so afraid what was it?

When Ser Waymar encounters the WW for the first time....

Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss "Come no further" the lording warned. His voice cracked like a boy's.

I think you can put Ser Waymars reaction down to battle nerves but the rangers are clearly scared and we later learn from Mormont they were the best he had specially chosen for their experience.

When Ser Waymar rises as a wight we don't get a reaction from Will so there is nothing in the text to tell us he is more / less or at all scared of the wight (although I'm pretty sure he is scared)

[Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik]

I think you can put Ser Waymars reaction down to battle nerves but the rangers are clearly scared and we later learn from Mormont they were the best he had specially chosen for their experience.

Ser Waymar is not a veteran. He's a lord's son and Mormont was pressured to let him lead. Gared is the veteran. I don't think anyone is saying that white walkers aren't to be feared. I think the idea is that white walkers are around, and sightings occur, because unless others have the ability to scare people with out being seen, there is no reason for Gared to harp on about starting a fire to protect them from 'things' etc.

Keep in mind that the White Walkers don't attack until Ser Waymar pulls his sword. At first they approach and talk.

[Capon Breath]

Ser Waymar is not a veteran. He's a lord's son and Mormont was pressured to let him lead. Gared is the veteran. I don't think anyone is saying that white walkers aren't to be feared. I think the idea is that white walkers are around, and sightings occur, because unless others have the ability to scare people with out being seen, there is no reason for Gared to harp on about starting a fire to protect them from 'things' etc.

Keep in mind that the White Walkers don't attack until Ser Waymar pulls his sword. At first they approach and talk.

Agree Ser Waymar is a novice - hence me putting his reaction down to nerves, by rangers I meant will & Gared who we know are veterans and specially chosen.

I actually think people are suggesting the WW are kicking around, a common occurrence and people aren't scared of them which I'm disagreeing with and providing fairly compelling evidence of from the books.

[Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik]

I actually think people are suggesting the WW are kicking around, a common occurrence and people aren't scared of them which I'm disagreeing with and providing fairly compelling evidence of from the books.

I'm disagreeing with you and refuting your evidence. Although I'm undecided. From the text I could see it going either way.

[nanother]

Not when said army of undead can't move faster than a walk, doesn't use any sort of weapon other than their hands and goes up in flames like a 2 week old Christmas tree soaked in gasoline when you so much as light a match within 20 feet of them. The wights simply aren't any kind of threat to a sizeable group of people with entrenched fortifications and a ready supply of food, water and fuel.

Their only real tactical advantage in a fight is the surprise factor when a seemingly mortal wound doesn't faze them at all. Once you know that stabbing them in the belly won't stop them, you concentrate on keeping your distance and taking away their mobility. If you know they're vulnerable to fire, you can't possibly lose because humans invented fire arrows ages ago.

They're simply not a credible threat to the wildlings and so it must be the Others they are running from, not the wights.

I agree for the most part, but I wouldn't say they're no credible threat. They come in great numbers and wildlings in particular don't have the advantage of well fortified dwellings.

Science /Magic is a perceptive of the civilization. For instance magic may deem the WW as life forms from the world in between; while science may label them interdenominational beings.Drop Galileo and Lauren Coleman( Cryptozoologists) in ASOFAI and i'm sure they'll have scientific explanations for what's going on.

Except, in Martin's world magic seems to be real and defying human understanding... as he claims it should be in fantasy.

Ser Waymar is not a veteran. He's a lord's son and Mormont was pressured to let him lead. Gared is the veteran. I don't think anyone is saying that white walkers aren't to be feared. I think the idea is that white walkers are around, and sightings occur, because unless others have the ability to scare people with out being seen, there is no reason for Gared to harp on about starting a fire to protect them from 'things' etc.

Keep in mind that the White Walkers don't attack until Ser Waymar pulls his sword. At first they approach and talk.

Nah, they only talk after Royce is wounded. But yes, it's Royce who draws his sword first, although at first more as a warning ('come n further!', he says) than a challenge.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Just stumbled on an interesting thread. Most of the Heretics know the subject matter well, but maybe it will be interesting for others (heh). There are some interesting posts, and Lummel quoted Ran on things interesting for Heresy:

"...at the L.A. Worldcon in 2006, George was on a panel and he was talking a bit dismissively about the cookie-cutter fantasies with a Dark Lord that's the ultimate evil, wants to destroy the world, etc. and he said, you know, nothing is ever that black and white in reality, history's greatest villains and monsters were, from their own perspective, heroic, etc. And he basically said he didn't want to write about a Dark Lord sort of situation.

And so someone followed up asking, Well, what about the Others? They seem pretty clearly evil.

He paused and then smiled and said we'd have to keep reading to see where that goes."

Actually I've probably quoted that piece on GRRM and the others in one of the earlier heresies too if you go back far enough

This sounds like something that we have discussed aplenty before, I believe in like the high teens, low twenties. I vaguely remember having it posted here and discussed

[nanother]

^ Yes, so do I.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Agree Ser Waymar is a novice - hence me putting his reaction down to nerves, by rangers I meant will & Gared who we know are veterans and specially chosen.

I actually think people are suggesting the WW are kicking around, a common occurrence and people aren't scared of them which I'm disagreeing with and providing fairly compelling evidence of from the books.

I think it's more of a people are scared of them but that there have been ample occurrences among the rangers and wildlings of people simply backing away, not interacting with them, and the Walkers therefore leaving them alone--the few times that we have actually seen a White Walker, it has never approached those present without an action that was undertaken by the unlucky ones. Waymar draws his sword first. Small Paul charges at the one that Sam kills; and Grenn attempts to assault it with the torch. The ones that go by Craster's seem to take the offering and leave until the next one is due. It's the wights that are potentially the problem--but even then, every occurrence of the wights attacking COULD be put down to an explanation:

Othor and Jafer - kill off Mormont

Fist: invading sacred ground?

Around the wildling host: harrying them southward? looking to grow some numbers?

outside children's cave: stopping Bran and co. from getting in?

Admittedly pure speculation

[Lummel]

Well the white walkers being non-evil seems pretty old hat to me. That seems to be something implicit in the very first heresy threads and discussed early on. If (like me! on my own :crying: ) you're still in the white walkers being wood dancers or descended from them or some of them then they must be not evil but natural and part of nature.

We had that great comparison between white walkers and black rangers patrolling a frontier in the style of rangers and Indians on the North-American frontier.

[Ser Leftwich]

Their only real tactical advantage in a fight is the surprise factor when a seemingly mortal wound doesn't faze them at all. Once you know that stabbing them in the belly won't stop them, you concentrate on keeping your distance and taking away their mobility. If you know they're vulnerable to fire, you can't possibly lose because humans invented fire arrows ages ago.

They're simply not a credible threat to the wildlings and so it must be the Others they are running from, not the wights.

There is a the factor of the cold. It is cold in the Prologue, it is cold on the Fist battle it turns a little colder when Small Paul and Sam encounter the WW. Tormund talks of his son dying in his sleep and fires being snuffed out from the cold. If it getting that cold out whenever the wights are actively attacking or being herded for an attack by the WW, that cold would be a factor in the fight.

I am leaving out the fight in front of the cave of the CotF, because I do not recall it very well. Also, those wights seems to have activated on the arrival of Bran and co. It is a circumstance worth bringing up.

Along with the rising of Othor and Jafer, in that, was it extra cold that night?

[nanother]

As to who the wildlings consider the main threat:

“Mance be damned,” the big man cursed. “You want to go back there, Osha? More fool you.

Think the white walkers will care if you have a hostage?”

The cold winds are rising, and men go out from their fires and never come back . . . or if they do, they’re not men no more, but only wights, with blue eyes and cold black hands. Why do you think I run south with Stiv and Hali and the rest of them fools? Mance thinks he’ll fight, the brave sweet stubborn man, like the white walkers were no more than rangers, but what does he know? He can call himself King-beyond-the-Wall all he likes, but he’s still just another old black crow who flew down from the Shadow Tower. He’s never tasted winter. I was born up there, child, like my mother and her mother before her and her mother before her, born of the Free Folk. We remember.” Osha stood, her chains rattling together.

[jon rr stark]

Well the white walkers being non-evil seems pretty old hat to me. That seems to be something implicit in the very first heresy threads and discussed early on. If (like me! on my own :crying: ) you're still in the white walkers being wood dancers or descended from them or some of them then they must be not evil but natural and part of nature.

We had that great comparison between white walkers and black rangers patrolling a frontier in the style of rangers and Indians on the North-American frontier.

Does evil or good come into it. They are doing their thing whatever that is and for whatever reason men are just in the way. Doesnt make them evil just at odds with each other. Mutually incompatable.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Well the white walkers being non-evil seems pretty old hat to me. That seems to be something implicit in the very first heresy threads and discussed early on. If (like me! on my own :crying: ) you're still in the white walkers being wood dancers or descended from them or some of them then they must be not evil but natural and part of nature.

We had that great comparison between white walkers and black rangers patrolling a frontier in the style of rangers and Indians on the North-American frontier.

You're not (completely) alone! While I am now steering away form the white walkers as wood dancers on drugs, I am in full agreement with the statement that they are "not evil but natural and part of nature." They are a living embodiment of death--not evil, but natural while still being this finality from which most attempt to avoid and fear with dread.

Does evil or good come into it. They are doing their thing whatever that is and for whatever reason men are just in the way. Doesnt make them evil just at odds with each other. Mutually incompatable.

Exactly--they are not evil (nor are they good)--they just are, and their being just happens to be largely to the detriment of Man

[Black Crow]

There is a the factor of the cold. It is cold in the Prologue, it is cold on the Fist battle it turns a little colder when Small Paul and Sam encounter the WW. Tormund talks of his son dying in his sleep and fires being snuffed out from the cold. If it getting that cold out whenever the wights are actively attacking or being herded for an attack by the WW, that cold would be a factor in the fight.

I am leaving out the fight in front of the cave of the CotF, because I do not recall it very well. Also, those wights seems to have activated on the arrival of Bran and co. It is a circumstance worth bringing up.

Along with the rising of Othor and Jafer, in that, was it extra cold that night?

Not that I recall, although Coldhands was acting increasingly edgy and reckoned that "they" were close by. I do say "acting" because I'm still not convinced about what we saw there and whether the cave was really under siege or whether the wights were a protective minefield and the whole fighting their way in business a pantmime to ensure that Bran and the gang went in there and didn't try to come out again in a hurry.

Interestingly although the numbers increase Summer is later able to come and go without hindrance.

[Ser Leftwich]

snip

For me the most compelling support for the WW being bad news comes from a pretty lame source. They are used as a Westerosi curse "The Others take you" and we tend not to curse people with things that are nice. So unlike the modern world where we tell people to "Go to hell" without knowing if it exists - we know the Others exisit and they are used as a Curse, why?

This is a good point. Also, we actually have WW taking people, in Craster's sons.

Arya_Nym quoted this line from Arya:

She remembered a tale she had heard from Old Nan, about how sometimes during a long winter men who’d lived beyond their years would announce that they were going hunting.

Maybe the WW used to be satisfied with all the Captains Oates that went out into the storm in the winter.

It would be a large undertaking, but anyone up for compiling a list of all uses of "...the Others take you."

[Black Crow]

On the subject of cold, there is that famous remark by Aemon Targaryen to the effect that fire consumes but cold preserves. as it happens I reached it earlier today on my re-read and think it may have been taken a little out of context.

Aemon is in Braavos, dying:

"Or am I an old man, feverish and dying." He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. "I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves. The Wall...but it is too late to go running back. The Stranger waits outside my door and will not be denied."

Now remember he's over 100 years old and has spent more than half of them in the harshest climate in Westeros. By rights he should have turned up his toes years ago. Instead he's lived far beyond a normal span and he's telling Sam it was the Wall. He's dying now because the cold magic of the Wall is no longer prolonging his life.

[alienarea]

You're not (completely) alone! While I am now steering away form the white walkers as wood dancers on drugs, I am in full agreement with the statement that they are "not evil but natural and part of nature." They are a living embodiment of death--not evil, but natural while still being this finality from which most attempt to avoid and fear with dread.

Exactly--they are not evil (nor are they good)--they just are, and their being just happens to be largely to the detriment of Man

Just a thought: if the White Walkers are the living embodiment of death as you postulate above, is this what Ser Waymar should have said: "Not today" in the old tongue?

[Tyryan Lannister]

Just a thought: if the White Walkers are the living embodiment of death as you postulate above, is this what Ser Waymar should have said: "Not today" in the old tongue?

Har! I like it. Maybe that's what the runes on papa Royce's armor translate to

[nanother]

It would be a large undertaking, but anyone up for compiling a list of all uses of "...the Others take you."

The phrase 'the Others take ...' occurred several times in the first few chapters of the re-read

My favourite so far:

“No,” Jon Snow said quietly. “It was not courage. This one [Gared] was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark.”

...

Robb was not impressed. “The Others take his eyes,” he swore.

King Robert says it quite a lot: 'the Others take your mild snows' (anther good one :P), 'the Others take my wife' (yes, please!), and there's more that I can't remember off the top of my head.

ETA: there's an interesting one from Osha. After the sack of Winterfell, she says (paraphrasing) if the gods are good, the Others will take whoever did this.