EPTI'm fairly certain the oath of the Night's Watch is what prevents the wights from becoming mindless zombies. At least that would explain how Sam/Gilly survived and why Bran was guided to the children of the forrest by a wight Night's Watchman. We haven't seen any wildling wights in controll of themselves yet. Other than that there's been a few allusions to power in the words throughout the book, such as when Jon/Sam say the words or when Jon leads the ranging out to the Godswood so the new recruits can recite it.
[TV/BOOK] *SPOILERS* Game of Thrones Discussion - Page 170
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SPOILER WARNING If you only watch the show, this thread will spoil you of future events in HBO's Game of Thrones. Thread contains discussion of all books of the series A Song of Ice and Fire Click Here for the spoiler-free thread. | ||
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Offhand
United States1869 Posts
I'm fairly certain the oath of the Night's Watch is what prevents the wights from becoming mindless zombies. At least that would explain how Sam/Gilly survived and why Bran was guided to the children of the forrest by a wight Night's Watchman. We haven't seen any wildling wights in controll of themselves yet. Other than that there's been a few allusions to power in the words throughout the book, such as when Jon/Sam say the words or when Jon leads the ranging out to the Godswood so the new recruits can recite it. | ||
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Irrelevant Label
United States596 Posts
What reason is there to think that nights watch members cannot become controlled by the others as wights? There is a rather strong reason to think otherwise, what with numerous rangers having been turned into wights. Wights as "mindless zombies" is a baseless assumption, and directly countered by their targeting of Mormont. Sam and Gilly survived because Coldhands and Bloodraven (or just Bloodraven depending on what exactly Coldhands is, etc) saved them. There is no mystery there. The black door is the only indication that there is a magic related to the oath of the nights watch, and even that could just be the door having some way of "knowing" and reacting accordingly rather than something about the oath changing the men to take it. All that is known is that it only opens for Sam, according to Coldhands a (living/current) member of the nights watch, and the password is to recite the oath. There are no specifics to be drawn from that. Who knows, maybe even it would only work for someone who took the oath by the old way? All kinds of major or minor elements and details could play into that. | ||
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On July 17 2012 02:25 Offhand wrote: Coldhands is dressed as a member of the Watch. He is likely a recently deceased Watchman (possibly Benjan) there hasn't been any indication that he has a history. The freed ghosts in Winterfell are likely causing the mysterious deaths when the Boltons occupy it, I doubt they're out beyond the wall. I'm fairly certain the oath of the Night's Watch is what prevents the wights from becoming mindless zombies. At least that would explain how Sam/Gilly survived and why Bran was guided to the children of the forrest by a wight Night's Watchman. We haven't seen any wildling wights in controll of themselves yet. Other than that there's been a few allusions to power in the words throughout the book, such as when Jon/Sam say the words or when Jon leads the ranging out to the Godswood so the new recruits can recite it. No it can't be Benjen, as the teletubbies said that he died "a very long time ago". Considering that these guys live for ages, and seem to forget that humans have another perspective sometimes, it's more than likely that Cold Hands is very old. Benjen disappeared relatively recently. I did forget about his Night's Watch clothes though. I'll go back to thinking he's the old Stark King Beyond the Wall / Night's Watch Lord Commander who married one of the Others, or possibly their offspring. It's mentioned a couple of times that Jon thinks they keep something of what they were. There's no proof for or against that this only should work for men of the Night's Watch. I think he has a couple of wights in prison cells as well iirc. | ||
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Abysus
United States67 Posts
On July 17 2012 05:51 Euronyme wrote: No it can't be Benjen, as the teletubbies said that he died "a very long time ago". Considering that these guys live for ages, and seem to forget that humans have another perspective sometimes, it's more than likely that Cold Hands is very old. Benjen disappeared relatively recently. I did forget about his Night's Watch clothes though. I'll go back to thinking he's the old Stark King Beyond the Wall / Night's Watch Lord Commander who married one of the Others, or possibly their offspring. It's mentioned a couple of times that Jon thinks they keep something of what they were. There's no proof for or against that this only should work for men of the Night's Watch. I think he has a couple of wights in prison cells as well iirc. I wouldn't be surprised to find out coldhands is an agent of bloodraven which would explain why he raised a former Night's watch member and its friendly towards sam/bran | ||
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On July 17 2012 08:53 Abysus wrote: I wouldn't be surprised to find out coldhands is an agent of bloodraven which would explain why he raised a former Night's watch member and its friendly towards sam/bran Don't we already know he's an agent of the blood raven though? I mean he knew where the raven was, and he took Bran there. The question is who he actually is/ was though. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16118 Posts
On July 17 2012 02:25 Offhand wrote: Coldhands is dressed as a member of the Watch. He is likely a recently deceased Watchman (possibly Benjan) there hasn't been any indication that he has a history. The freed ghosts in Winterfell are likely causing the mysterious deaths when the Boltons occupy it, I doubt they're out beyond the wall. I'm fairly certain the oath of the Night's Watch is what prevents the wights from becoming mindless zombies. At least that would explain how Sam/Gilly survived and why Bran was guided to the children of the forrest by a wight Night's Watchman. We haven't seen any wildling wights in controll of themselves yet. Other than that there's been a few allusions to power in the words throughout the book, such as when Jon/Sam say the words or when Jon leads the ranging out to the Godswood so the new recruits can recite it. I'm fairly sure that the first wights that Jon killed at Castle Black were Night's Watchmen. That would seem to go against the theory that there's something in the oath that protects the Night's Watch from becoming wights. BTW: I just finished the Dance with Dragons. Here's my official sum up of the last 5 chapters. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu......" Thanks for reading. | ||
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Downside
173 Posts
What purpose did resurrecting Catelyn's corpse serve for the story? I realize that it was done by the same priest that raised Beric, and that she seems to have taken Beric's place as the leader of that band of vigilantes, but why revive such a major character from her death without having it play some major role? I can't think of anything from AFFC or ADWD that elaborates on her storyline. So far the only thing it really does is further prove the red god's ability to bring back the dead and thus leave hope for Jon to comeback, though the prologue to ADWD with Varamyr Sixskins does a that job as well. Are we to just assume her revival will develop in the next two books, seems so weird to go two entire books without much development of a seemingly major event, otherwise it just seems like an unnecessary twist. | ||
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Iranon
United States983 Posts
On July 30 2012 08:02 Downside wrote: I finished listening to the audio book for book 5 recently and now that I am all the way through the story so far I have one question that has been bothering me. What purpose did resurrecting Catelyn's corpse serve for the story? I realize that it was done by the same priest that raised Beric, and that she seems to have taken Beric's place as the leader of that band of vigilantes, but why revive such a major character from her death without having it play some major role? I can't think of anything from AFFC or ADWD that elaborates on her storyline. So far the only thing it really does is further prove the red god's ability to bring back the dead and thus leave hope for Jon to comeback, though the prologue to ADWD with Varamyr Sixskins does a that job as well. Are we to just assume her revival will develop in the next two books, seems so weird to go two entire books without much development of a seemingly major event, otherwise it just seems like an unnecessary twist. I certainly hope Francatelynstein plays an important role in the next book... I actually forgot all about her revival until someone mentioned it in this thread. That's one of the few things that really bothers me about the plotting of this series. | ||
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Irrelevant Label
United States596 Posts
I understand what you mean about the last few chapters at the end of Dance, but my own feelings at the time were more negative being concerned with "wait, so he is setting up...but there are not enough pages left here to...and that is it? @*#) there are too meany years between these books being released for him to do this. This kind of thing is beneath this series, isn't it?" He might as well have cut off book two with the first half of Davos' entering the Blackwater chapter and left the battle of the blackwater for book three and moved the red wedding such that the previous chapter had ended with the band switching to the Rains of Castamere. | ||
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On July 30 2012 08:02 Downside wrote: I finished listening to the audio book for book 5 recently and now that I am all the way through the story so far I have one question that has been bothering me. What purpose did resurrecting Catelyn's corpse serve for the story? I realize that it was done by the same priest that raised Beric, and that she seems to have taken Beric's place as the leader of that band of vigilantes, but why revive such a major character from her death without having it play some major role? I can't think of anything from AFFC or ADWD that elaborates on her storyline. So far the only thing it really does is further prove the red god's ability to bring back the dead and thus leave hope for Jon to comeback, though the prologue to ADWD with Varamyr Sixskins does a that job as well. Are we to just assume her revival will develop in the next two books, seems so weird to go two entire books without much development of a seemingly major event, otherwise it just seems like an unnecessary twist. Not quite right. The priest didn't want to revive her, so Beric himself did it and sacrificed himself in the process (I think). She will probably kill off Jame, and soon there won't be any Lannisters left at all. | ||
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Kyuukyuu
Canada6263 Posts
I wonder what the point of showing Shireen like that is? She seems like such a throwaway character (at least until ADWD where she is still very, very minor) that a full-on introduction doesn't seem very necessary, as none of the characters are having any contact with the grey death yet. | ||
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Dosey
United States4505 Posts
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Irrelevant Label
United States596 Posts
Do not understand bothering with her while apparently skipping Edric. He actually is somewhat useful for discussing Azor Ahai prophecy matters and as material for Stannis v Melisandre v Davos interactions. | ||
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moopie
12605 Posts
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Irrelevant Label
United States596 Posts
They have a Tormund right? I can see Varamyr (called Orell in a character merge) being noteworthy enough to include so long as he isn't coming before the other wilding leaders. It would make sense to want to use the western sounding name Orell for a wilding and leave out the more essos eastern foreign sounding while also including "myr" Varamyr. They thought Osha/Asha was an issue and those two characters are only barely ever a weak degree of separation apart at the closest. | ||
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Doublemint
Austria8703 Posts
On July 21 2012 03:08 Vindicare605 wrote: I'm fairly sure that the first wights that Jon killed at Castle Black were Night's Watchmen. That would seem to go against the theory that there's something in the oath that protects the Night's Watch from becoming wights. BTW: I just finished the Dance with Dragons. Here's my official sum up of the last 5 chapters. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu......" Thanks for reading. I come pretty much to the same conclusion... but at least the theorizing about, for instance, who could be Jon's father and chasing some minor hints like paranoid madmen to make up possible future outcomes is funy as well  And that being said, very well played Mr. Martin for making us your bitches! | ||
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MapleFractal
Canada307 Posts
On August 01 2012 18:43 Doublemint wrote: I come pretty much to the same conclusion... but at least the theorizing about, for instance, who could be Jon's father and chasing some minor hints like paranoid madmen to make up possible future outcomes is funy as well And that being said, very well played Mr. Martin for making us your bitches! Yes Kudo's to him... He better finish the series before he dies lol Otherwise there's gonna be a lot of upset people to never have the series concluded properly lol. Looking forward to the 6th book very much. Reading through this tread makes me want to go read Dance with Dragons again, infact! I think ill do just that. Tip of the Hat Gentlemen | ||
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On August 01 2012 18:43 Doublemint wrote: I come pretty much to the same conclusion... but at least the theorizing about, for instance, who could be Jon's father and chasing some minor hints like paranoid madmen to make up possible future outcomes is funy as well And that being said, very well played Mr. Martin for making us your bitches! It's totally Rhaegar :p | ||
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Offhand
United States1869 Posts
On August 01 2012 15:39 Irrelevant Label wrote: It is for the people who have not read the books. They have had a lot of success with the child characters and actors so I suspect they just want to put the new one forward for promotional material regardless of how tiny the role really is. Do they have a patchface lined up? Unless they do I'm not sure how Shireen even fits in. She is like season 1 Tommen/Myrcella; child character who might be in a scene or two and have a line along the lines of "Hi, <person>" but that is about it. They have cut/merged more important characters. Do not understand bothering with her while apparently skipping Edric. He actually is somewhat useful for discussing Azor Ahai prophecy matters and as material for Stannis v Melisandre v Davos interactions. IIRC all the prophetic/foreshadowing/plot relevant scenes involving Shireen happen at the beginning of book 2. | ||
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Kyuukyuu
Canada6263 Posts
On August 01 2012 16:56 moopie wrote: In addition to Shireen I don't understand why they cast Orell at all. If anything they could have cast Varamyr Sixskins and even he isn't that important. Seems wasteful for minor characters to just take up screen time again. It forces the writers to leave more out of the main plots because of limited airtime. S2 already suffered from that. Not sure why they switched from Varamyr to Orell, but I imagine he'll just be a plot device to explain warging, either directly to Jon (which would be kinda stupid I guess) or by having someone else tell Jon about how great Orell is at warging. Also I'm pretty sure Edric Storm will still be in there, they haven't gone into Azor Ahai very much yet (did Saal even talk about it to Davos? I don't remember) | ||
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