The Cold, The Wight and The Wight Walker

[WargMeIn]

I wouldn't say that magic is back because of the WWs,there are several theories on that which i like. But magic is not something that goes and come,it is true of our real world and of this world Why? Well we only have to look at the Wall itself,it was enacted with magic and is still standing,people like to Ghost of High Heart practice magic in one form or the other.The fact that skinchangers and Woods Witches are prominant beyond that wall and the fact BR is alive attached to a tree able to see through it is proof that magic never went away. Magic is noticeable because people believe and belief increases signs.

Noteworthy is this,the land that is now Westeros had its own set of rules long before men set foot on it.There are creatures great and small and inhabitants that still live there and while in the background they didn't stop living and doing the things they did because men came,its just done in secret.

As to the WWs giving the Wights general commands and that their using "the cold". It's not inferred nor is there any proof to support that.

I hate to make guesses about what will happen but i think a lot of bad mistakes are going to made because of in correct assertions about the WWs role.

I think that based on the text "the cold" is raising the Wights and the WWs don't have anything to do with that.

I wish to remind everyone that we are talking about a fictional world which works however GRRM ultimately says it works (assuming he ever does say how it works). I am trying to argue within what little is known and the very large amount that can be speculated on. Please remember that my motto is all predictions wrong or your money back

You may not say that the WW brought magic back, but I think it is a possibility. The power of Magic is undoubtedly on the wane as ASOIAF begins - all the current users of Magic that we know of (the Pyromancer's Guild, the Warlocks, and the priests of R'hllor) had trouble making their spells work if they worked at all. Now at least the Pyromancers and the Priests are finding their power is back and increasing.This is what I am talking about when I say that Magic is back.

We do NOT know that the Wall was made with Magic(neither do we know how it was made, by whom, and how long it took). It may have had spells cast on it or just been warded like the caves Bran is in. The skinchangers, wood witches, BR, etc... may or may not need the power of Magic to do what they do. They certainly do not directly invoke any magic to do so that we know of though.

As for the wights, let's say for arguments sake that no one controls them and see where that leads us. What's their motivation then? They don't need anything (no food, shelter, etc...). If you think they just hate all living things then why wouldn't they have attacked the Free Folk en masse all the time.

Winter has arrived obviously so it is cold and getting colder everywhere. The cold that accompanies the WW is a whole other level of nasty coldness. My feeling is that the WW bring that cold with them and that it is Magical in origin and that the Magic of the WW is animating the dead (making wights).

[wolfmaid7]

Within the confines of the series there is worked and natural magic. Skinchangers should fall under natural. I don't know where it was ever stated that the Pyromancers used spells to create wild fire .

Note when it comes to the wall it was enacted using magic. We have Mel's POV talking about being stronger at the wall and about the lore and spells going into building it.

We also have the wall blocking communication for Warging. But I'm nit saying no one controls them , I'm saying the cold controls them it is something natural ( natural magic ) akin to the land .

Had men not been in Westeros there wouldn't be such a quantity.

If you go back to Sam in the fist he asks the same riddle concerning the Wights " do they bring the cold or does the cold bring them " so it's not as simple as the WWs bringing the cold when the sane happens with the wights .

Except when the wights come people fall asleep which indicates that the cold with them is different

I think you're misreading my OP I never proposed that the WWs hate all living things that's contrary to what I said or even what I was thinking .

What I'm saying is the whether or not men were in Westetos or not " the cold" and the White walkers would still be doing what's happening .The difference then was the original in habitants of the land knew to go underground and ward their caves against those that died and would rise. The white walkers job would be to ensure that the proportion of wights didnt get out if control

When men came to Westeros they added a new dynamic . They multiplied un tamely and were always at war with each other . So you can see easily the problem .

Quotes by Leaf and Blood raven paints a world that depends on balance . It's not so now with the introduction of men .

[LynnS]

Following up on the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid and the similarities to our wights; the most obvious aspect is the use of a micro organism, a biolunimenscent bacteria, and phermones that act as an auto inducer growing bacteria internally and then releasing it into the environment. A nocturnal animal that avoids the sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWgfSELnzog

But I think in the case of the wights; earlier heresy speculation that the deadlier activating agent is a virus, seems more to the point. Consider that Patchface represents a bio-hazard flag; not necessarily just in relation to Shereen; but placed at the Wall. The wights represent a form of bio-hazard or contagion and I'm reminded of Othor standing eyeball to eyeball with Jon; his fingers shoved into Jon's mouth to keep it open. I'm also reminded of the only wight without blue eyes and the way he muffles his mouth with his scarf.

In the North beyond the Wall we have one biohazards and in the East, there is another biohazard with remarkably similar characteristics.

In ADWD, Tyrion (18) considers the different forms of greyscale. Tyrion is travelling with Griff and company down the Sorrows. They are floating in a fog so thick; they can't see what is in front of them.

Septa Lemore is praying. The mists muffled the sound of her voice, making it seem small and hushed......

"I do not like this place," Haldon Halfmaester muttered.

"Frightened of a little fog?" mocked tyrion, though in truth there was quite a lot of fog. At the prow of the Shy Maid, Young Griff stood with the third pole, to push them away from hazards as they loomed up through the mists. ...

"This is no common fog, Hugor Hill," Ysilla insisted. "It stinks of sorcery, as you would know if you had a nose to smell it. ... There are restless spirits in the air here and tormented souls below the water."

... "Ysilla is not wrong. This fog is not natural". Something foul grew in the waters here, and festered in the air. Small wonder the stone men go mad.

"You should not mock," warned Ysilla. "The whispering dead hate the warm and quick and ever seek for more damned souls to join them."

..."I would not eat of any fish taken from these waters," said Ysilla. "I would not."

"We'd do well not to breathe the fog either," said Haldon. "Garin's Curse is all about us."

The only way not to breathe the fog is not to breath." "Garin's Curse is only grescale," said Tyrion. the curse was oft seen in children, especially in damp, cold climes. The afflicted flesh stiffened, calcified, and cracked....

Then the disease passed, leaving its young victims disfigured but alive. Maesters and septons alike agreed that children marked by greyscale could never be touched by the rarer mortal form of the affliction, nor by its terrible swift cousin, the grey plague.

Ysilla's superstitions relate to the spread of the disease through fogs and mists, water and fish in the water and that the disease is found primarily in damp, cold climates. This sounds very much like the wights and although the Cold has yet to arrive; the wights are present in the cold, damp, rainy and snowy lands beyond the Wall.

Tyrion refers to the childhood form of greyscale and the grey plague that so devastated Oldtown; but what is this rarer mortal form? Could it be that the wights are infected with this rare form, so deadly it kills almost instantly if it is breathed in by a living person? When did the plague arrive in Westeros?

The Wildlings know of it and kill any child that manifests the childhood form of the disease according to Val. Perhaps the Wildlings don't have the same immunity as the main population, shut off from the south behind the Wall. Is this why Coldhands doesn't manifest the blue eyes. Because the disease had not reached beyond the Wall at that point in history; but was later brought by traders as it was in Old Town? Is this why the Wildlings have knowledge of wights, occasionally afflicted with the rarer form of the disease?

Stone eyes are blind eyes, thought Tyrion. The mortal form of greyscale began in the extremities, he knew: a tingling in a fingertip, a toenail turning black, a loss of feeling. As numbness crept into the the hand, or stole past the foot up the leg. The flesh stiffened and grew cold and the victim's skin took on a greyish hue resembling stone.

This description of the rarer form sounds so much like freezing with the fingertips turning black; the numbness creeping into the body, the loss of feeling; growing cold and hard. The stone men sound very much the wights or the north:

"The Bridge of Dream," Griff named it. "There will be stone men on the span. some may start to wail at our approach, but the are not like to molest us. Most stone men are feeble creatures, clumsy, lumbering, witless. Near the end they all go mad, but that is when they are most dangerous. If need be, fend them off with the torches. On no account let them touch you."

The tale of Garin's curse is fascinating.

"Damp is said to be the culprit," he (Tyrion) said. "Foul humors in the air. Not curses."

"The conquerors did not believe either, Hugor Hill," said Ysilla. "The men of Volantis and Valyria hung Garin in a golden cage and made mock as he called upon his Mother to destroy them. But in the night the waters rose and drowned them, and from that day to this they had not rested. They are down there still beneath the water, they who were once the lords of fire. Their cold breath rises from the murk to make these fogs, and their flesh has turned as stony as their hearts".

My goodness. Stone hearts, drowned fire lords?

"We are made of blood and bone, in the image of the Father and Mother," said Septa Lemore. "Make no vainglorious boasts, I beg you. Pride is a grievous sin. The stone men were proud as well, and the Shrouded Lord was proudest of them all."

The heat from the glowing coals brought a flush to Tyrion's face. Is there a Shrouded Lord? Or is he just some tale?

"The Shrouded Lord has ruled these mists since Garin's day," said Yandry. "Some say that he himself is Garin, risen from his watery grave."

"The dead do not rise," insisted Haldon Halfmaester, "and no man lives a thousand years. Yes, there is a Shrouded Lord. Thee have been a score of them. When one dies another takes his place. This one is a corsair from the basilisk Islands who believed the Rhoyne would offer richer pickings than the Summer Sea."

"Aye, I've heard that too," said Duck, "but there's another tale I like better. The one that says he's not like t'other stone men, that he started as a statue till a grey woman came out of the fog and kissed him with lips as cold as ice."

Well, this might explain why there are so many stone statues missing their heads. It does bring up a few questions about the Greyjoys and their drowned god. And I wonder if Patchface and Aeron Damphair sacrifice to the Palaces beneath the water of the Sorrows, a forgotten memory; rather than under the sea.

The sudden cold hit Tyrion like a hammer. As he sank he felt a stone hand fumbling for his face. Another closed around his arm, dragging him down into the darkness. Blind, his nose full of river, choking, sinking, he kicked and twisted and fought to pry the clutching fingers off his arm, but the stone fingers were unyielding. Air bubbled from his lips. The world was black and growing blacker. He could not breath.

When he opened his mouth to curse them all, black water filled his lungs, and the dark closed in around him.

How very much like Jon's encounter with Othor.

[wolfmaid7]

Following up on the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid and the similarities to our wights; the most obvious aspect is the use of a micro organism, a biolunimenscent bacteria, and phermones that act as an auto inducer growing bacteria internally and then releasing it into the environment. A nocturnal animal that avoids the sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWgfSELnzog

But I think in the case of the wights; earlier heresy speculation that the deadlier activating agent is a virus, seems more to the point. Consider that Patchface represents a bio-hazard flag; not necessarily just in relation to Shereen; but placed at the Wall. The wights represent a form of bio-hazard or contagion and I'm reminded of Othor standing eyeball to eyeball with Jon; his fingers shoved into Jon's mouth to keep it open. I'm also reminded of the only wight without blue eyes and the way he muffles his mouth with his scarf.

In the North beyond the Wall we have one biohazards and in the West, there is another biohazard with remarkably similar characteristics.

In ADWD, Tyrion (18) considers the different forms of greyscale. Tyrion is travelling with Griff and company down the Sorrows towards. They are floating in a fog so thick; they can't see what is in front of them.

Septa Lemore is praying. The mists muffled the sound of her voice, making it seem small and hushed......

"I do not like this place," Haldon Halfmaester muttered.

"Frightened of a little fog?" mocked tyrion, though in truth there was quite a lot of fog. At the prow of the Shy Maid, Young Griff stood with the third pole, to push them away from hazards as they loomed up through the mists. ...

"This is no common fog, Hugor Hill," Ysilla insisted. "It stinks of sorcery, as you would know if you had a nose to smell it. ... There are restless spirits in the air here and tormented souls below the water."

... "Ysilla is not wrong. This fog is not natural". Something foul grew in the waters here, and festered in the air. Small wonder the stone men go mad.

"You should not mock," warned Ysilla. "The whispering dead hate the warm and quick and ever seek for more damned souls to join them."

..."I would not eat of any fish taken from these waters," said Ysilla. "I would not."

"We'd do well not to breathe the fog either," said Haldon. "Garin's Curse is all about us."

The only way not to breathe the fog is not to breath." "Garin's Curse is only grescale," said Tyrion. the curse was oft seen in children, especially in damp, cold climes. The afflicted flesh stiffened, calcified, and cracked....

Then the disease passed, leaving its young victims disfigured but alive. Maesters and septons alike agreed that children marked by greyscale could never be touched by the rarer mortal form of the affliction, nor by its terrible swift cousin, the grey plague.

Ysilla's superstitions relate to the spread of the disease through fogs and mists, water and fish in the water and that the disease is found primarily in damp, cold climates. This sounds very much like the wights and although the Cold has yet to arrive; the wights are present in the cold, damp, rainy and snowy lands beyond the Wall.

Tyrion refers to the childhood form of greyscale and the grey plague that so devastated Oldtown; but what is this rarer mortal form? Could it be that the wights are infected with this rare form, so deadly it kills almost instantly if it is breathed in by a living person? When did the plague arrive in Westeros?

The Wildlings know of it and kill any child that manifests the childhood form of the disease according to Val. Perhaps the Wildlings don't have the same immunity as the main population, shut off from the south behind the Wall. Is this why Coldhands doesn't manifest the blue eyes. Because the disease had not reached beyond the Wall at that point in history; but was later brought by traders as it was in Old Town? Is this why the Wildlings have knowledge of wights, occasionally afflicted with the rarer form of the disease?

Stone eyes are blind eyes, thought Tyrion. The mortal form of greyscale began in the extremities, he knew: a tingling in a fingertip, a toenail turning black, a loss of feeling. As numbness crept into the the hand, or stole past the foot up the leg. The flesh stiffened and grew cold and the victim's skin took on a greyish hue resembling stone.

This description of the rarer form sounds so much like freezing with the fingertips turning black; the numbness creeping into the body, the loss of feeling; growing cold and hard. The stone men sound very much the wights or the north:

"The Bridge of Dream," Griff named it. "There will be stone men on the span. some may start to wail at our approach, but the are not like to molest us. Most stone men are feeble creatures, clumsy, lumbering, witless. Near the end they all go mad, but that is when they are most dangerous. If need be, fend them off with the torches. On no account let them touch you."

The tale of Garin's curse is fascinating.

"Damp is said to be the culprit," he (Tyrion) said. "Foul humors in the air. Not curses."

"The conquerors did not believe either, Hugor Hill," said Ysilla. "The men of Volantis and Valyria hung Garin in a golden cage and made mock as he called upon his Mother to destroy them. But in the night the waters rose and drowned them, and from that day to this they had not rested. They are down there still beneath the water, they who were once the lords of fire. Their cold breath rises from the murk to make these fogs, and their flesh has turned as stony as their hearts".

My goodness. Stone hearts, drowned fire lords?

"We are made of blood and bone, in the image of the Father and Mother," said Septa Lemore. "Make no vainglorious boasts, I beg you. Pride is a grievous sin. The stone men were proud as well, and the Shrouded Lord was proudest of them all."

The heat from the glowing coals brought a flush to Tyrion's face. Is there a Shrouded Lord? Or is he just some tale?

"The Shrouded Lord has ruled these mists since Garin's day," said Yandry. "Some say that he himself is Garin, risen from his watery grave."

"The dead do not rise," insisted Haldon Halfmaester, "and no man lives a thousand years. Yes, there is a Shrouded Lord. Thee have been a score of them. When one dies another takes his place. This one is a corsair from the basilisk Islands who believed the Rhoyne would offer richer pickings than the Summer Sea."

"Aye, I've heard that too," said Duck, "but there's another tale I like better. The one that says he's not like t'other stone men, that he started as a statue till a grey woman came out of the fog and kissed him with lips as cold as ice."

Well, this might explain why there are so many stone statues missing their heads. It does bring up a few questions about the Greyjoys and their drowned god. And I wonder if Patchface and Aeron Damphair sacrifice to the Palaces beneath the water of the Sorrows, a forgotten memory; rather than under the sea.

The sudden cold hit Tyrion like a hammer. As he sank he felt a stone hand fumbling for his face. Another closed around his arm, dragging him down into the darkness. Blind, his nose full of river, choking, sinking, he kicked and twisted and fought to pry the clutching fingers off his arm, but the stone fingers were unyielding. Air bubbled from his lips. The world was black and growing blacker. He could not breath.

When he opened his mouth to curse them all, black water filled his lungs, and the dark closed in around him.

How very much like Jon's encounter with Othor.

Thank you so much Lynns for posting this , I have to update the OP with the new Info. I felt it great and a service to have the scientific input alongside the supernatural as a fair and unbiased look across the spectrum and you did it do eloquently .

I am ofcourse of two heads u can defiantly see the cold as a supernatural entity but I cannot ignore that the same could be explained scientifically. Since GRRM himself stated that disease will play a big part this angle may not be far off .

Medieval societies had a propensity to mistake the explainable for the supernatural . So it will be good to have these two explanations for the sand outcome .

[Lord Ravenstark]

I disagree. To me is clear that White Walkers, Others and "the Cold" are the same things. GRRM like to give many name to the same thing to give it an "air of mystery". I am heretic, I admit, but my doubts lie in "from where they came? Why?" not "There are many things trying to kill everybody".

Also, I don't think they are utterly evil. Aegon the Conqueror killed and burned thousands and he isn't "evil". They are inhumanly different, only.

[wolfmaid7]

I disagree. To me is clear that White Walkers, Others and "the Cold" are the same things. GRRM like to give many name to the same thing to give it an "air of mystery". I am heretic, I admit, but my doubts lie in "from where they came? Why?" not "There are many things trying to kill everybody".

Also, I don't think they are utterly evil. Aegon the Conqueror killed and burned thousands and he isn't "evil". They are inhumanly different, only.

I really should stop procrastinating on this but I should update additional text to support this.

But I disagree it can't be the same because we have text that they aren't. The effects of when these different groups show up is stark contrasts.

Ok you say they are the same I will ask for text showing that. What textually speaking is there to indicated that they are the same thing?

Because when I get home I will add more evidence than what is already listed that they are not. The Wights are just tools of "the cold" which has no direct link to the WWs and that can be proven .

I don't think the Wights are evil they are just the tools of a natural occurrence. The WWs have their place in the cycle which is about keeping the balance .

[Lord Ravenstark]

I really should stop procrastinating on this but I should update additional text to support this.

But I disagree it can't be the same because we have text that they aren't. The effects of when these different groups show up is stark contrasts.

Ok you say they are the same I will ask for text showing that. What textually speaking is there to indicated that they are the same thing?

Because when I get home I will add more evidence than what is already listed that they are not. The Wights are just tools of "the cold" which has no direct link to the WWs and that can be proven .

I don't think the Wights are evil they are just the tools of a natural occurrence. The WWs have their place in the cycle which is about keeping the balance .

I don't have the books right now with me but I will be quoting some samples I found.

"The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking."

"The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor."

Here we have "Other" with capital O. It's clear the Will believe he is seeing a creature he saw dueling with Royce is an Other.

"Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.

In that darkness, the Others came for the first time, They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children. Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds-"

Here we have the same Others, they lead an army of slain, Wights, and even ride dead horses. There are non-human Wight-like creatures among the Wights. This one was Old Nan's.

I haven't found any reference about White Walkers and Others being the same thing but I'm sure there some.

In your OP, you quoted some excerpts about the "cold"... in many of them I saw "cold" as "cold", not an entity. Like the cold of blood loss, the cold associated with death, the cold of a cold place be it naturally cold or a supernatural cold the Wights/Others may bring, the cold who kill people by hypothermia...

There are mentions to "white cold/white shadows/white mist", all associated at least once were associated to the wights.

"A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fights a mist crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breath, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?

"We do not ride for the Wall. We ride north, after Mance Rayder and these Others, these white shadows and their wights. We seek them, Gilly. Your babe would not be safe with us."

(This one, as you may argue that "the Others, these white shadows" are different things... I will say they aren't, he used two names for the same thing, also connecting to the Wights. In this case only the author can say what he meant, I'm not GRRM.)

I haven't found any reference about the "cold" raising Wights. Well, I found a page of the wiki of Ice and Fire, but wasn't able to find the source of information. Anyway, the page says "the cold that accompanies the Others"... one more reference about the Others raising the dead. I don't think there are man things raising Wights and giving them to the Others, I think that the Others are called by many names.

Well... It's what I believe, based on my interpretation. If you have another why to interpretate and have other thoughts, you are free. I respect it, so I hope you to respect mine.

Good night.

[wolfmaid7]

I don't have the books right now with me but I will be quoting some samples I found.

"The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking."

"The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor."

Here we have "Other" with capital O. It's clear the Will believe he is seeing a creature he saw dueling with Royce is an Other.

"Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.

In that darkness, the Others came for the first time, They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children. Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds-"

Here we have the same Others, they lead an army of slain, Wights, and even ride dead horses. There are non-human Wight-like creatures among the Wights. This one was Old Nan's.

I haven't found any reference about White Walkers and Others being the same thing but I'm sure there some.

In your OP, you quoted some excerpts about the "cold"... in many of them I saw "cold" as "cold", not an entity. Like the cold of blood loss, the cold associated with death, the cold of a cold place be it naturally cold or a supernatural cold the Wights/Others may bring, the cold who kill people by hypothermia...

There are mentions to "white cold/white shadows/white mist", all associated at least once were associated to the wights.

"A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fights a mist crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breath, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?

"We do not ride for the Wall. We ride north, after Mance Rayder and these Others, these white shadows and their wights. We seek them, Gilly. Your babe would not be safe with us."

(This one, as you may argue that "the Others, these white shadows" are different things... I will say they aren't, he used two names for the same thing, also connecting to the Wights. In this case only the author can say what he meant, I'm not GRRM.)

I haven't found any reference about the "cold" raising Wights. Well, I found a page of the wiki of Ice and Fire, but wasn't able to find the source of information. Anyway, the page says "the cold that accompanies the Others"... one more reference about the Others raising the dead. I don't think there are man things raising Wights and giving them to the Others, I think that the Others are called by many names.

Well... It's what I believe, based on my interpretation. If you have another why to interpretate and have other thoughts, you are free. I respect it, so I hope you to respect mine.

Good night.

Its not said outright stated i agree,there isn't something that says " The cold raises Wights" this is about reasoning and critical thinking with regards to the info given in the text.

I wasn't being snarky about asking for text that infers or could be looked at for analysis i was earnestly,asking if you did have any it would be nice to evaluate.

I don't go by the wiki because it is not reliable being written by fans an all that.

But just to let you know i was being sincere in asking if you can pinpoint for me.

I think you are misreading me . MY theory is that "the cold" is an entity.I'm confused by your reply i'm not saying that Wights and WWs are the same thing.

[nanother]

If you go back to Sam in the fist he asks the same riddle concerning the Wights " do they bring the cold or does the cold bring them " so it's not as simple as the WWs bringing the cold when the sane happens with the wights .

Except when the wights come people fall asleep which indicates that the cold with them is different

Wait, where does that notion come from? I thought it was the other way around - wights come when people tend to be sleeping. Is there an instance when someone falls asleep because wights are nearby?

[Roose The Weddingcrasher]

[...]

Thank you! Your post made me see the parallels! Now, in light of your analysis, things like the drowning of the Ironborn (is there an entire population of potential wight-like creatures?), the gradually increasing creepiness of Patchface and "DEAD THINGS IN THE WATER" fill me with anticipation of upcoming events in the books that would provide us with some explanation that would further unify these phenomenons and reveal this exciting layer of the story!

[wolfmaid7]

Wait, where does that notion come from? I thought it was the other way around - wights come when people tend to be sleeping. Is there an instance when someone falls asleep because wights are nearby?

Ahh i put it in the OP i still have to clean it up with more text,but i've observed on several occasions that when Wights are near people seem to "doze" off and it's not them going to bed they doze off mid thought in the most peculiar way.

In addition,"the cold" has done the same to a dying person ( Towyn,Tourmond's son). So the correlation i'm making that with the Wights and "The cold" there is that tendency of either putting you to sleep in order to gain access via the mouth.

[nanother]

Well, hypothermia tends to do that doesn't it? If it's extra cold, then perhaps it's all faster? I don't understand how that's specific to the wights, though :dunce:

[Black Crow]

I haven't found any reference about White Walkers and Others being the same thing but I'm sure there some.

This was something we discussed in Heresy recently. The clearest reference comes immediately before that Old Nan story you quoted:

Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”

“You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously.

“The Others,” Old Nan agreed.

Sam also refers to the Others as the white walkers in the wood.

[wolfmaid7]

Well, hypothermia tends to do that doesn't it? If it's extra cold, then perhaps it's all faster? I don't understand how that's specific to the wights, though :dunce:

Considered hypothermia first as my control and dismissed it because symptoms and experiences of a hypothermic person differs. It was also reference not in term but in symptoms early in the AGOT prologue ( Gared I believe was rattling it of to Waymar) and V6 himself was rembembering what he had been told about how regular cold kills . Feeling sleepy then warm etc.

So I have to hypothermic cases in the text as baseline references

None of these were the experiances by Jon who was very much alive and by v6 . Had the Wight horde not come I have no doubt he would have died from hypothermia ; it just wasn't happening at that moment . Too quick

[nanother]

Varamyr was already dying of a combination of cold, his unhealed wound and hunger. He literally used his last strength to try to claim Thistle. I definitely think that attributing his death to the wights is a huge stretch. I'm not sure about Jon, I never thought his dozing off was anything extraordinary either. The one example that cound work is the AGoT Prologue, but we know so little about what happened that I'd be very careful drawing any conclusions from that...

If anything, both (AGoT) Jon and Sam (ASoS, when ex-Small Paul shows up) wake up to being cold and afarid, when the wights come.

[wolfmaid7]

Varamyr was already dying of a combination of cold, his unhealed wound and hunger. He literally used his last strength to try to claim Thistle. I definitely think that attributing his death to the wights is a huge stretch. I'm not sure about Jon, I never thought his dozing off was anything extraordinary either. The one example that cound work is the AGoT Prologue, but we know so little about what happened that I'd be very careful drawing any conclusions from that...

If anything, both (AGoT) Jon and Sam (ASoS, when ex-Small Paul shows up) wake up to being cold and afarid, when the wights come.

I think i may not have made myself clear enough ,if you go back to my OP for reference i proved this using text.I don't think the Wights killed V6 or was responsible for his death,that's not what i said at all.The Cold clearly got him, he pretty much told us verbatim how he died( it's in the OP).

As too Sam and Jon, waking up is besides the point,and that wasn't the observation i was drawing attention too.Under what conditions are these people falling asleep that is the anomaly.Sam and Jon were completely different .No sudden changes in temp and lighting occurred with Sam as it did with V6 and Jon and early in the progloge of AGOT while they going back to the Wilding camp .So Sam's sleeping case was not cause and effect.He and Gilly settled in to sleep.

The answer is in the text Jon didn't just doze off "it grew suddenly cold,suddenly dark" then lights out.

In Jon's case it was Ghost who woke him up with his rukus(Two wights present),in V6 case it was Thistle who woke him up( hundreds of them were not far).

In Sam's case he and Gilly were already asleep by their own choice as i said. That's nothing unique they've been riding all day, plus(one wight was present) .If "the cold" is given off by the Wights it reanimates then Small Paul wasn't going to affect them the same way.I'm not even going to count that because Small Paul just came upon two people(Sam and Gilly) who were already sleeping.

I disagree, the prologue has a lot of clues and explanations that's just surfaced and just observing what they see objectively can give a lot of answers.

[evita mgfs]

Following up on the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid and the similarities to our wights; the most obvious aspect is the use of a micro organism, a biolunimenscent bacteria, and phermones that act as an auto inducer growing bacteria internally and then releasing it into the environment. A nocturnal animal that avoids the sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWgfSELnzog

But I think in the case of the wights; earlier heresy speculation that the deadlier activating agent is a virus, seems more to the point. Consider that Patchface represents a bio-hazard flag; not necessarily just in relation to Shereen; but placed at the Wall. The wights represent a form of bio-hazard or contagion and I'm reminded of Othor standing eyeball to eyeball with Jon; his fingers shoved into Jon's mouth to keep it open. I'm also reminded of the only wight without blue eyes and the way he muffles his mouth with his scarf.

In the North beyond the Wall we have one biohazards and in the East, there is another biohazard with remarkably similar characteristics.

In ADWD, Tyrion (18) considers the different forms of greyscale. Tyrion is travelling with Griff and company down the Sorrows. They are floating in a fog so thick; they can't see what is in front of them.

Septa Lemore is praying. The mists muffled the sound of her voice, making it seem small and hushed......

"I do not like this place," Haldon Halfmaester muttered.

"Frightened of a little fog?" mocked tyrion, though in truth there was quite a lot of fog. At the prow of the Shy Maid, Young Griff stood with the third pole, to push them away from hazards as they loomed up through the mists. ...

"This is no common fog, Hugor Hill," Ysilla insisted. "It stinks of sorcery, as you would know if you had a nose to smell it. ... There are restless spirits in the air here and tormented souls below the water."

... "Ysilla is not wrong. This fog is not natural". Something foul grew in the waters here, and festered in the air. Small wonder the stone men go mad.

"You should not mock," warned Ysilla. "The whispering dead hate the warm and quick and ever seek for more damned souls to join them."

..."I would not eat of any fish taken from these waters," said Ysilla. "I would not."

"We'd do well not to breathe the fog either," said Haldon. "Garin's Curse is all about us."

The only way not to breathe the fog is not to breath." "Garin's Curse is only grescale," said Tyrion. the curse was oft seen in children, especially in damp, cold climes. The afflicted flesh stiffened, calcified, and cracked....

Then the disease passed, leaving its young victims disfigured but alive. Maesters and septons alike agreed that children marked by greyscale could never be touched by the rarer mortal form of the affliction, nor by its terrible swift cousin, the grey plague.

Ysilla's superstitions relate to the spread of the disease through fogs and mists, water and fish in the water and that the disease is found primarily in damp, cold climates. This sounds very much like the wights and although the Cold has yet to arrive; the wights are present in the cold, damp, rainy and snowy lands beyond the Wall.

Tyrion refers to the childhood form of greyscale and the grey plague that so devastated Oldtown; but what is this rarer mortal form? Could it be that the wights are infected with this rare form, so deadly it kills almost instantly if it is breathed in by a living person? When did the plague arrive in Westeros?

The Wildlings know of it and kill any child that manifests the childhood form of the disease according to Val. Perhaps the Wildlings don't have the same immunity as the main population, shut off from the south behind the Wall. Is this why Coldhands doesn't manifest the blue eyes. Because the disease had not reached beyond the Wall at that point in history; but was later brought by traders as it was in Old Town? Is this why the Wildlings have knowledge of wights, occasionally afflicted with the rarer form of the disease?

Stone eyes are blind eyes, thought Tyrion. The mortal form of greyscale began in the extremities, he knew: a tingling in a fingertip, a toenail turning black, a loss of feeling. As numbness crept into the the hand, or stole past the foot up the leg. The flesh stiffened and grew cold and the victim's skin took on a greyish hue resembling stone.

This description of the rarer form sounds so much like freezing with the fingertips turning black; the numbness creeping into the body, the loss of feeling; growing cold and hard. The stone men sound very much the wights or the north:

"The Bridge of Dream," Griff named it. "There will be stone men on the span. some may start to wail at our approach, but the are not like to molest us. Most stone men are feeble creatures, clumsy, lumbering, witless. Near the end they all go mad, but that is when they are most dangerous. If need be, fend them off with the torches. On no account let them touch you."

The tale of Garin's curse is fascinating.

"Damp is said to be the culprit," he (Tyrion) said. "Foul humors in the air. Not curses."

"The conquerors did not believe either, Hugor Hill," said Ysilla. "The men of Volantis and Valyria hung Garin in a golden cage and made mock as he called upon his Mother to destroy them. But in the night the waters rose and drowned them, and from that day to this they had not rested. They are down there still beneath the water, they who were once the lords of fire. Their cold breath rises from the murk to make these fogs, and their flesh has turned as stony as their hearts".

My goodness. Stone hearts, drowned fire lords?

"We are made of blood and bone, in the image of the Father and Mother," said Septa Lemore. "Make no vainglorious boasts, I beg you. Pride is a grievous sin. The stone men were proud as well, and the Shrouded Lord was proudest of them all."

The heat from the glowing coals brought a flush to Tyrion's face. Is there a Shrouded Lord? Or is he just some tale?

"The Shrouded Lord has ruled these mists since Garin's day," said Yandry. "Some say that he himself is Garin, risen from his watery grave."

"The dead do not rise," insisted Haldon Halfmaester, "and no man lives a thousand years. Yes, there is a Shrouded Lord. Thee have been a score of them. When one dies another takes his place. This one is a corsair from the basilisk Islands who believed the Rhoyne would offer richer pickings than the Summer Sea."

"Aye, I've heard that too," said Duck, "but there's another tale I like better. The one that says he's not like t'other stone men, that he started as a statue till a grey woman came out of the fog and kissed him with lips as cold as ice."

Well, this might explain why there are so many stone statues missing their heads. It does bring up a few questions about the Greyjoys and their drowned god. And I wonder if Patchface and Aeron Damphair sacrifice to the Palaces beneath the water of the Sorrows, a forgotten memory; rather than under the sea.

The sudden cold hit Tyrion like a hammer. As he sank he felt a stone hand fumbling for his face. Another closed around his arm, dragging him down into the darkness. Blind, his nose full of river, choking, sinking, he kicked and twisted and fought to pry the clutching fingers off his arm, but the stone fingers were unyielding. Air bubbled from his lips. The world was black and growing blacker. He could not breath.

When he opened his mouth to curse them all, black water filled his lungs, and the dark closed in around him.

How very much like Jon's encounter with Othor.

GREAT STUFF! I do think there is something to Othor's fingers in Jon's throat. Why Jon's?

Jojen gets Grey Water fever, and after his illness, he has greendreams.

After Bran's coma, he returns to earth as the greatest and most powerful greenseer ever.

I truly believe AGoT holds everything we need to figure out some of the mysteries in the series. We just have to detect the right path and go forward bravely.

Are you a scientist?

[nanother]

I think i may not have made myself clear enough ,if you go back to my OP for reference i proved this using text.I don't think the Wights killed V6 or was responsible for his death,that's not what i said at all.The Cold clearly got him, he pretty much told us verbatim how he died( it's in the OP).

I'm not saying it wasn't the cold. But you seem to state that cold+wights is different from cold+popsicles, in as much that cold+wights put people to sleep while cold+popsicles don't, which I don't see any strong evidence for. If that's not what you're saying then I indeed misunderstood you. I do find it hard sometimes to understand your posts, so it's quite possible.

As too Sam and Jon, waking up is besides the point,and that wasn't the observation i was drawing attention too.

It's not besides the point - if wight-cold had a sleep-inducing effect, then it'd be really unlikely that already sleeping people would wake up spontaneously, as both Gilly and then Sam did.

The answer is in the text Jon didn't just doze off "it grew suddenly cold,suddenly dark" then lights out.

In Jon's case it was Ghost who woke him up with his rukus(Two wights present),in V6 case it was Thistle who woke him up( hundreds of them were not far).

That's true about them being woken up. However, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken about their falling asleep being anything extraordinary.

Varamyr was already dying, chilled to the bone AND his wound is bleeding and inflammated at the same time AND hungry. He's sprawled out in the snow for who knows how long, his mind wanders off and eventually he falls asleep. Seems perfectly normal under those circumstances.

And the same with Jon. There's nothing sudden implied:

“My father is no traitor,” he told the direwolf when the rest had gone. Ghost looked at him in silence. Jon slumped against the wall, hands around his knees, and stared at the candle on the table beside his narrow bed. The flame flickered and swayed, the shadows moved around him, the room seemed to grow darker and colder. I will not sleep tonight, Jon thought.

Yet he must have dozed.When he woke, his legs were stiff and cramped and the candle had long since burned out.

He's staring at the dancing flame and shadows, brooding, and dozes off, presumably before the wight attack, bcause he sleeps for a significant amount of time (cramped legs, candle burned out).

[evita mgfs]

I think i may not have made myself clear enough ,if you go back to my OP for reference i proved this using text.I don't think the Wights killed V6 or was responsible for his death,that's not what i said at all.The Cold clearly got him, he pretty much told us verbatim how he died( it's in the OP).

As too Sam and Jon, waking up is besides the point,and that wasn't the observation i was drawing attention too.Under what conditions are these people falling asleep that is the anomaly.Sam and Jon were completely different .No sudden changes in temp and lighting occurred with Sam as it did with V6 and Jon and early in the progloge of AGOT while they going back to the Wilding camp .So Sam's sleeping case was not cause and effect.He and Gilly settled in to sleep.

The answer is in the text Jon didn't just doze off "it grew suddenly cold,suddenly dark" then lights out.

In Jon's case it was Ghost who woke him up with his rukus(Two wights present),in V6 case it was Thistle who woke him up( hundreds of them were not far).

In Sam's case he and Gilly were already asleep by their own choice as i said. That's nothing unique they've been riding all day, plus(one wight was present) .If "the cold" is given off by the Wights it reanimates then Small Paul wasn't going to affect them the same way.I'm not even going to count that because Small Paul just came upon two people(Sam and Gilly) who were already sleeping.

I disagree, the prologue has a lot of clues and explanations that's just surfaced and just observing what they see objectively can give a lot of answers.

WOLFMAID7: I wanted to point out that the moment the WWs appear in the Prologue of AGoT, the WIND STOPS.

You may have read my theory that Bran learns to control the wind, and he speaks to Theon through the red leaves of the heart tree in WF's godswood.

The last time Theon speaks with Bran, he no longer needs the wind. The wind stops, but the leaves still speak "Theon" and "Bran". One leaf brushes Theon's forehead as if it were a touch from Bran himself.

I agree that Martin has all his secrets in AGoT: it is an outline of the epic series, filled with foreshadowing, irony, suspense, and more and more!

[LynnS]

GREAT STUFF! I do think there is something to Othor's fingers in Jon's throat. Why Jon's?

Jojen gets Grey Water fever, and after his illness, he has greendreams.

After Bran's coma, he returns to earth as the greatest and most powerful greenseer ever.

I truly believe AGoT holds everything we need to figure out some of the mysteries in the series. We just have to detect the right path and go forward bravely.

Are you a scientist?

Not unless you are including mad scientists. LOL! Every time I go back and look at aGoT, I find something else that makes me sit up straight. Not only does Tyrion's encounter with a stone man mirror Jon's encounter with Othor in many ways; Othor mirrors Tyrion himself:

The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes...,