The Others, bloody thirsty killers or something else?

[Villaboy]

I was just curious on everyone's thoughts, are the other`s just blood thirsty killers wanting to kill everything with warm blood in it`s veins or do they have a motive? Personally we have seen motives from everything else so far so it wouldn`t surprise me if GRRM had given the others a bigger motive than mindless slaughtering.

[TheDarkOne]

I tend to wonder if they won't be victorious in the end.

[King of Winters]

I think that their main plan is something we have yet to understand and discover. And I don't think that they're just mindless killing machines that kill everything in their path.

[RedtheWarrior]

I agree, it would seem more like GRRM to give them a purpose and complex motivations that we are as yet unable to see.

[JLE]

Life and death, ice and fire, both are needed. But one cannot conquer the other. Life can never prevent death: but death cannot take the final victory because otherwise there is nothing left to die, so it has won nothing.

[Black Crow]

GRRM has promised there is much more to them which we'll learn in Winds of Winter.

[Ser Illifer the Penniless]

GRRM has promised there is much more to them which we'll learn in Winds of Winter.

Where/when did he say this? And did he elaborate in any way? I would be interested to comb over any possible clues...

[Black Crow]

Interviews, I think most recently in the Barcelona one, but if you're interested in this come and visit the Heresy thread on the ADwD side of the board.

[JLE]

Did he say there's more *to* them, or just that we'll hear more *of* them?

[Black Crow]

Here's a few of his comments. as I said before if you want to know more come and have a look at the Heresy thread on the ADwD side of the board:

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http://web.archive.o...s3/00103009.htm

Martin: There are a lot of legends, and you'll be hearing more about them in the future books, but a lot of stuff about Others and about dragons maybe isn't completely understood by the people of the present. Obsidian is of course volcanic glass; it's formed by immense heat and pressure down in the earth. The dragons themselves are creatures of intense heat.

Shaw: Do you know what substance an Other sword is made from.

Martin: Ice. But not like regular old ice. The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it.

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And so someone [at the LA Worldcon in 2006] 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. It implied to me that, yes, there's more to the Others than what we've seen so far.

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And the comic book artist Tommy Patterson:

I had many talks with George. He told me of the ice swords, and the reflective, camouflaging armor that picks up the images of the things around it like a clear, still pond. He spoke a lot about what they were not, but what they were was harder to put into words. Here is what George said, in one e-mail: '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.

[lostinwesteros]

The Others do intrigue me. From what I've seen thus far, they seem pretty durn terrifying, but then it also seems they have a history with the Children of the Forest before the First Men and COTF joined together to fight them? Or that they were once COTF, too, and somehow 'split' with the other COTF? My ASOIAF history is definitely not great.

But I remember that the Night King married an Other [a woman with blue eyes from beyond the Wall] and also that when the COTF (?) and a Stark (Brandon?) built the wall, the magic they put into it was to keep the others out. I think I'm remembering correctly, but ?

In re-reading AGOT, I noted more carefully Bran's dream, just before he regained consciousness, when he "looked north. He saw the Wall, shining like blue crystal . . .And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid." The next part is where the crow whispered as it sat on Bran's shoulder, "Now you know. Now you know why you must live. . . Because winter is coming. My thinking was that what was in the heart of winter was the heart of "other-land", but now I'm not so sure. Something happened to cause the Others to re-emerge from far under the ice, so I guess it's possible that the Others are also fleeing what lies further north, "in the heart of winter".

When Coldhands finally got Bran, Jojen, Meera, and Hodor to the cave, he did have to fight off Others, so, again, seems like they're threatening in a major way ??? I can't wait to see what happens in TWOW.

Then there's my question, are the Others/White Walkers the same as wights? I've GOT to get to those Heresy threads!

[Black Crow]

Heresy will bring you to understanding and Heresy 51 is about to launch very shortly on the ADwD side of the board so come across and see

As to your question, no the Others/White Walkers are most definitely not the same as wights.

'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.'

[kraziness]

Well, I'm surely not going to read 50 loooong threads about it. Where would you suggest I start?

[Starkbringer]

Tormund Giantsbane told Jon that the Others wer never far away. That they were always just at your heels but you just didn't see them. I don't think they just re-emerged at all. Craster has been sacrifing to them for years and the Night King sacrifed to them. The could just blend with nature like the TCOTF did/do. There was some sort of trigger here, I think. GRRM said it all started with a Direwolf and a sword in a forest. What/who made the direwolf run south if she was running south? Was she headed to Winterfell? Why? Why does Ghost have eyes like Bloodraven? Why were the mother direwolf's eyes full of maggots in the snow? Did Bloodraven warg the direwolf and then Ghost? These are the questions I want answered.

[Black Crow]

Well, I'm surely not going to read 50 loooong threads about it. Where would you suggest I start?

Heresy 50; big OP summarising a lot of the stuff, followed by essays looking in more detail at, amongst other things, the Others and their probable use of glamours; and yes, in response to Starkbringer, they have always been around in the forests beyond the Wal; the Wildlings know of them and Mormont and the rangers know of them. What's different now is that in the rising tide of magic they have regained the ability to raise armies of wights, turning them from bogeymen in the woods into a threat.

[kraziness]

Heresy 50; big OP summarising a lot of the stuff, followed by essays looking in more detail at, amongst other things, the Others and their probable use of glamours; and yes, in response to Starkbringer, they have always been around in the forests beyond the Wal; the Wildlings know of them and Mormont and the rangers know of them. What's different now is that in the rising tide of magic they have regained the ability to raise armies of wights, turning them from bogeymen in the woods into a threat.

Thanks!

And fwiw, I think your explanation makes perfect sense (if it can be summed up in a sentence or two).

[mrlukeduke]

Heresy will bring you to understanding and Heresy 51 is about to launch very shortly on the ADwD side of the board so come across and see

As to your question, no the Others/White Walkers are most definitely not the same as wights.

'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.'

Which is why the HBO adaptation of the Others surprised me. They weren't "beautiful" or mysterious. They showed too much, and that always takes the edge of the enigma. I imagined them in my mind to be like Predators before a reveal, and like a sort of shimmering icy shadow that flickers in and out of the visual spectrum once they are "revealed". Just completely alien and bizarre, and yet sort of spellbindingly beautiful and terrifying.

[Swagwell]

I get why the others are pissed. First they get beaten and chased away in the long night, then somebody raises a wall to kep them out, the Night King probably banged some kinda Other chiefs daughter which made them upset but yeah, they chilled (he he) ate a few of Crasters baby boys and that was that.

Then this little smartass dude came and took a piss from the top of the wall, totally disrespecting the sanctity of the Others lands, thus they started killing every human and horse they could find.

[The King Breaker]

Life and death, ice and fire, both are needed. But one cannot conquer the other. Life can never prevent death: but death cannot take the final victory because otherwise there is nothing left to die, so it has won nothing.

never thought of it like that

[siknes]

Where/when did he say this? And did he elaborate in any way? I would be interested to comb over any possible clues...

He said something about a POV from the land of always winter, where the Others are gathering there forces. Maybe Benjen, maybe the leader of the Others. He has to give us something to drool over for the last book, final battle.