Red Wedding Cake Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 This weeks show did not disappoint. I hope it keeps shedding new light on the plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mother of The Others Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Part of our reproductive cycle is now grown human-dependent, as you begin to fathom. Not coincidentally this is the same dynamic as you see in the whelping of dragons. Oh please bless our eggs so that they might quicken, Khalisi! Mother may I? may my embryos pass go? And so it is up in the snow. Attend us, and do send us these your sons, so our numbers might grow. It was not always so. Before it was muddled and the fates of species intertwined and befuddled, all who walked without warmth had their source in me. I died long ago, though, which is why Melisandre's search for the Great Other falters and alights on nothing apropos, for I am gone and her wandering eye has nowhere good to go. The mother of all is gone and our ranks must now make do with these manufactures built from living animus sublimated into crystaline solemnity, these abominations that tie us to weakness, that link us to you. In order to survive, this we do. You can surmise on whom the blame falls for our derailment and ever rage. Once there was truth. Still, unchanging with no need to change, for all was perfect, finished. Then arose the Incomplete, the ephemeral, ever needy, dancing in the fire. They came to take and to promise, to touch and displace and alter, to melt and mar and shatter, to ring us round with the clatter of their warlike cries. Liar liar, soul on fire, and the delicate irreplaceable core of winter died. Henceforth and forever we will bring the answer for all of your riotous need. The misshapen volcanism trapped within you we release, for look how it so longs to be free that, when your innards are rearranged on the snow, out it bleeds. Wrongly trapped, blessedly quenched and calmed. And when the fires go out, and winter comes at last, that is when the truth will return to you, and you will know that we come not to conquer nor slay, neither to herd nor harness you---for we have to come extricate ourselves from you and from the limitation imposed on us so long ago by your ancestors----to take out the bit from the maw of Winter and be truly our own once more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Reaver Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 <snippity> Well, that about settles it then. After all, the Mother ought to know these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KINGpanther Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Great thread!Yeh I just watched the latest episode and was like "holy shit". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Human Abstract Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Best HBO reproduction scene yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Kinkslayer Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Best HBO reproduction scene yet. LOL :agree: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
averde Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I think HBOs episode tonight made it pretty clear how they "reproduce". Getting sacrifices in a place like the far north from tribal people like the Wildlings probably isn't terribly hard to do I'd imagine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bear Island Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Wow, I guess we know the answer now. I was not expecting that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mourneblade Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 This is something I have long suggested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Whiskers Outlaws Beet Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I was sort of bummed, the show was basically showing us a spoiler of future books... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet199 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 It's not really a spoiler as it has been stated in the books. I'm glad it's been spelled out. It shuts down one of the most dodgy theories out there, that Craster's wives shouldn't be believed basically because they are silly old women and if a "reliable" male character had of said the same thing then it would have been canon. The show also had an other with a ponytail like show!Benjen which could well be a big spoiler. Could be that adult Starks can also be othered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KINGpanther Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I was sort of bummed, the show was basically showing us a spoiler of future books...If you continue watching, get used to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen Alysanne™ Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I wonder whether only males can be "otherfied" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I wonder whether only males can be "otherfied"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Even if the process works just as well on females, Craster has good reason to only give them his sons, and the Others have good reason to let him do so. From his point of view, his daughters are his playthings and servants, and sons would be competition. From their point of view, his daughters are brood mares for more sacrifice babies, and as long as he can keep most of them pregnant most of the time any other males are superfluous. Of course from his wives' point of view, it's another story; fortunately, we have Gilly to see that story too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horizon Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 It's not really a spoiler as it has been stated in the books. Correct. Just like other things the show is just more visual in showing things. The question: So it are Crasters sons, then did the Others only start up after Craster started making sons or was there someone before Craster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyoftheNorth72 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Frankly as a mother I almost couldn't watch any of those scenes tonight. I was squeezing DH's hand until he yelped and had to just turn away. I'm not sure I am going to accept show canon as book canon until a chapter spells it out that specifically. It seems evident to me that the producers are trying to throw something in there to remind the show audience "oh yeah, there's a whole other set of bad guys besides slave masters" and also set up Stannis becoming less seen as a bad guy, since he will (hopefully) be heading north soon. I've always believed that in the physical sense Others are more or less zombies if you will, and they took the souls (but likely not the actual flesh) of Craster's sons to animate and create new Others. You don't really have a big population / propogation issue if your physical being is nigh impossible to kill. There was the comment by Ygritte that the Wildlings opened all those graves and let all those shades loose in the world (if so, thanks much, Mance). I guess I see one of the primary differences between wights and Others as this: becoming a wight steals the soul but leaves the more-vulnerable physical being. Being an Other means an almost immortal physical being with a need for a soul or souls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet199 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Old Nan says that the Others came first during the long night. Now the first men had been around for a bit before the long night so are the Others an indigenous people in Westeros who the first men had just not encountered yet or have they always been a group of magically altered humans who are designed to survive ice age conditions? The Night's King was apparently the Other with crown-like horns on the show (this is a big spoiler) so either NW men or Starks or both are capable of being turned into others when they are adults. My feeling towards Craster is he probably had some Stark blood from his father, which is probably rare north of the wall, so the Others took the opportunity to make more potential Others rather than just turning Craster into one of them. Craster is not useful as a fighter or for knowledge he has of south of the wall unlike Benjen. Going a bit more speculative. I wonder if the tombs in Winterfell are warded to prevent the old Starks being raised up by the Others. Ned certainly worried about the Old Kings rising up. It could be that Jon may get to meet his mother after all. "Jon, I am your mother, come to the ice side ... we have sorbet." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sword in the Morning Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I kind of always assumed it had something to do with magic. Who are you kidding? This is GRRM. The Others bone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyoftheNorth72 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 "This is GRRM. The Others bone."Very punny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Heath Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I think if you're an adult you have to either willingly accept or be chosen. I also think women can be Others because there was that ice chick that seduced the Night's King. But I don't think there are many women Others, since their main source of recruitment is Craster's sons and the Night's Watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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