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.
The thing about the Others is it's always assumed that they are not diverse like humans. For example in some other fantasy stories Elves are always proud and beautiful, Dwarves are always hardy and drunk, Orcs are always ugly and evil, etc. Though there have been some variations on this, they usually have a racial stereotype not found in the humans in the story.
People seem to picture the Others a race where every Other has the same motives and desires. For all we know the Others we've come across so far could be a group of zealots who have been kicked out of the Land of Always Winter for practicing necromancy. Benjen Stark could have befriended some happy-go-lucky Other. Martin does not seem like an author to cast every Other as the same, I would expect them to be almost as diverse as humans where only some of them are assholes. As a majority they might have some motives conflicting with the Westerosi, or recently had a political change causing them to want to expand south, but really we don't have a clue.
Of course the final scene of the new episode casts doubt on some of this as now it looks like (some) Others are born human and turned, but I can't imagine their entire race/culture relies on stealing human babies. We'll see though.
On May 01 2014 17:09 Steveling wrote: The facts are a) night's king was killed by the king in the north and the king beyond the wall and b) there was no peace treaty or anything similar during his reign, only dark stories of horror, he was an usurper and probably x10 twisted as the worst Bolton ever. A man like that would certainly not act like a diplomat with some ice zombies, lol.
Both of these are pretty clear. Now if some of you wanted grrm to include a "he was so dead that he wouldn't be able to be risen/resurrected/cloned/transported from a parallel universe" line, then I'm afraid you just believe what you want to believe.
Also if something like that happened it would be a very hard deus ex machina formulation and grrm avoids it like the plague.
lol at 8,000 year old stories being told by 90 year old women to 7 year old boys as being "facts".
Well, a lot of Old Nan's stories do turn out to be incredibly accurate.
Can you name a few? I kinda don't remember that stuff^^
People grasp at a lot of straws with this series. It's pretty interesting, just from a human behaviour perspective. We have very little information about anything, in a series that is known for unpredictability (but in a good way, "everything happened in a logical pattern and with hindsight was totally obvious" way, not a "gotcha" kind of way). Yet people still construct these theories grounded on very little fact.
Quite frankly, there is essentially no information available to corroborate any of these theories vis a vis the Night's king, the nature of lightbringer and the Night's watch, or the true nature of the Others. There's some pretty elaborate explanations, but I think they largely just amount to creative imaginings/wishful speculation on the part of their authors, and hinge on so many small details and so much speculation that they are pretty implausible.
Basically, we don't have enough information. There's enough information to speculate on some things (most obvious is R + L = J), but precious little for most of it, which is what keeps the series interesting. I am content to leave it at that, all will (hopefully) be revealed in time.
And also, for the record, we know that coldhands (or are somewhat sure of the case) can't pass willingly through the wall beneath the Nightfort, so at the very least wights can't go south
On May 02 2014 06:23 Redox wrote: I like the idea of the Others erecting the Wall, because it looks exactly like something they could do, with their reign over cold. But a lot of things were ignored in this theory or straight up dont make sense. Like, where do the Children fit in? Why are they fighting the Others, or the Others fighting them? They have always been north of the wall. Have they also forgotten about the pact? Cant imagine that.
Also, the wildlings would have broken this pact a long time ago when they settled north of the wall. Actually, was there ever a time when there were no humans north of the wall? From what I know they were there since the wall was erected. In any case the Others should have attacked them a long time ago and driven them from their land, if they have a problem with them. And then they should just man their wall and protect it, not eradicate everything south of it.
Lastly, the author of that theory tried too hard to make the Others into "good guys", as if that even matters. The Targaryens threatening "the world at large" is not a reason to basically do the same thing. In the end the reason for why they want to go south and kill everybody is not even important, they have to be stopped regardless from a human pov.
edit: Oh another thing. If the Others made the wall, why is it that the undead (their thralls) can not pass it while the humans can without any problems? Should it not be the other way around then?
Humans are dishonorable, lie, cheat, and steal -- grrm likes showing us this. An easy explanation why the wildlings have been there the whole time, is that they shouldn't be but just don't care. Man don't keep their promises.
The others, overall, really might not like confrontation or violence to solve their problems. If you are to believe this, clearly things have changed recently, or we have some renegade groups who think otherwise.
On May 01 2014 17:09 Steveling wrote: The facts are a) night's king was killed by the king in the north and the king beyond the wall and b) there was no peace treaty or anything similar during his reign, only dark stories of horror, he was an usurper and probably x10 twisted as the worst Bolton ever. A man like that would certainly not act like a diplomat with some ice zombies, lol.
Both of these are pretty clear. Now if some of you wanted grrm to include a "he was so dead that he wouldn't be able to be risen/resurrected/cloned/transported from a parallel universe" line, then I'm afraid you just believe what you want to believe.
Also if something like that happened it would be a very hard deus ex machina formulation and grrm avoids it like the plague.
lol at 8,000 year old stories being told by 90 year old women to 7 year old boys as being "facts".
I don't even... That's the writer speaking, using old nan to give us information that we wouldn't have without her? This is like, I don't know, how can you not understand that.
>Writer wants to sneak in some info >Writer uses a support character to do that seamlessly >Reader argues that the character is not to be "trusted", xD
And something else, if you ignore all this you realise that this theory is just 100% made up. So why stop there, you can enrich your fantasy more, you should include some aliens, a genius math solving albino monkey and Sherlock Holmes in a unique cameo appearance. It all makes sense if you try really hard.
On May 01 2014 17:09 Steveling wrote: The facts are a) night's king was killed by the king in the north and the king beyond the wall and b) there was no peace treaty or anything similar during his reign, only dark stories of horror, he was an usurper and probably x10 twisted as the worst Bolton ever. A man like that would certainly not act like a diplomat with some ice zombies, lol.
Both of these are pretty clear. Now if some of you wanted grrm to include a "he was so dead that he wouldn't be able to be risen/resurrected/cloned/transported from a parallel universe" line, then I'm afraid you just believe what you want to believe.
Also if something like that happened it would be a very hard deus ex machina formulation and grrm avoids it like the plague.
lol at 8,000 year old stories being told by 90 year old women to 7 year old boys as being "facts".
Well, a lot of Old Nan's stories do turn out to be incredibly accurate.
Can you name a few? I kinda don't remember that stuff^^
Old Nan talked about giants and direwolves I believe. She also said the Others ride dead horses, and that some men mated with Others to "sire terrible half-human children", which the show sort of maybe perhaps half confirmed.
She also spoke of Harren the Black and the Last Hero. Obviously, not all of her tales are true, but they do contain details which are accurate. The same goes for Osha, who I believe talked about the red comet being related to dragons, and was correct in that regard.
On May 01 2014 17:09 Steveling wrote: The facts are a) night's king was killed by the king in the north and the king beyond the wall and b) there was no peace treaty or anything similar during his reign, only dark stories of horror, he was an usurper and probably x10 twisted as the worst Bolton ever. A man like that would certainly not act like a diplomat with some ice zombies, lol.
Both of these are pretty clear. Now if some of you wanted grrm to include a "he was so dead that he wouldn't be able to be risen/resurrected/cloned/transported from a parallel universe" line, then I'm afraid you just believe what you want to believe.
Also if something like that happened it would be a very hard deus ex machina formulation and grrm avoids it like the plague.
lol at 8,000 year old stories being told by 90 year old women to 7 year old boys as being "facts".
I don't even... That's the writer speaking, using old nan to give us information that we wouldn't have without her? This is like, I don't know, how can you not understand that.
>Writer wants to sneak in some info >Writer uses a support character to do that seamlessly >Reader argues that the character is not to be "trusted", xD
And something else, if you ignore all this you realise that this theory is just 100% made up. So why stop there, you can enrich your fantasy more, you should include some aliens, a genius math solving albino monkey and Sherlock Holmes in a unique cameo appearance. It all makes sense if you try really hard.
If the writer says not every prophecy is going to be fullfilled, and that even what's written about the current events may not necessarily be true, because they are based on the POV of a specific character, it's not too far off to believe that old folklore may not be 100% accurate.
It really isn't that absurd that Martin wrote some of the legends as they are written in the real word. Time changes the stories and while they may be based on an actual event, the details are not reliable.
Old Nan stories are supposed to scare the children from both Others and Wildlings. We have already seems wildlings are not exactly evil beasts, maybe the Others are the same. As much as Martin has talked about no wanting black and white villains, it is pretty likely the Other won't end up being as black and white as they seem from some tales. Even if I don't think that interpretation from reddit is particularly likely.
There's no reason to take it literally, even though the "writer used a support character to sneak some info". Maybe there was a cook that killed the kings son, but it's unlikely the gods turned him into a rat all rats in Nightfor come from him.
We have ice zombies, demon babies, dragons, some gnomes(the children), a fire god, those magical assassins that arya is training with but a transformed human would be too much? xd Obviously some of this just fluff, lore that grrm uses to shape his world.
But not this because this is directly involved with the story, he just wanted us to know something of this night's king dude because someone is probably side with the others and resume his role. This theory about peace pacts and the nights king not being dead is just made up.
the old nan stories do two things -- they tell us about the others, and they demonstrate how everyone is fucking terrified of what is beyond the wall. This stuff is important. It does not need to be true, at all, although most of it probably is.
It doesn't matter he is trying to sneak in info -- its intentional worldbuilding. and its this world building that makes us afraid of the savage others. Old nan tells stories. They might be rooted in truth more often than not, but time shapes stories and histories.
I don't know what you are arguing. None of these are "facts".
On May 02 2014 09:11 Steveling wrote: Whatever, suit yourself. We will both be here when the next book gets published so I can post "I told you".
None of us know. Some may suspect this or that, and may be able to build evidence to support it. Don't get huffy though, because y'all are just spitballing with incomplete information.
Furthermore, GRRM has probably written stuff to mislead even close readers of the books, so using what's been published to extrapolate is a chancy endeavor at best.
I want to like it. I like a good stand against the common assumptions. Any set of ideas based on the others as the creators of the wall is pretty baseless though. Off the top of my head, if the wall is "theirs" why...
...has it been controlled by humans for the entire known history?* (*other than for a wrinkle that was the GRRM Night King). ...does it stop their forces from crossing while letting other things pass? ...is Melisandre in some 'alignment' with the obviously "anti-other" warding magic in it?
It also is based on some plainly wrong assumptions, like saying that the others did not engage with the wildlings as substantially as the night's watch. They were massacring wildlings. Mance mentions it. Things were bad enough for wildlings that they put aside their many differences to unite under a king-beyond-the-wall for a mass flight south. It was specified that they were still getting hounded on their way south except for a brief reprieve around the time the others attacked the watch at the fist.
Wargs have been around the whole time. There is nothing special about the most recent generation of Starks aside from the density - 6/6 in the most recent generation. The one who is somewhat special is Bran, and even he isn't unique or anything. It is just rarer to have a greenseer.
I will agree that a balance between ice and fire thing is the writing on the wall though.
That, and Dany is set to be one of the closer things to a "big bad" in the story; regardless of being well-intended.
On May 02 2014 09:33 Irrelevant Label wrote: I want to like it. I like a good stand against the common assumptions. Any set of ideas based on the others as the creators of the wall is pretty baseless though. Off the top of my head, if the wall is "theirs" why...
...has it been controlled by humans for the entire known history?* (*other than for a wrinkle that was the GRRM Night King). ...does it stop their forces from crossing while letting other things pass? ...is Melisandre in some 'alignment' with the obviously "anti-other" warding magic in it?
I can't speak for much else, but it would seem plausible that the wall hadn't always stopped others passing through and that a later entity (in alignment with fire - so Mel type stuff) came along and made it so they could not pass. After all, a massive coast to coast wall does provide a rather convenient barrier! Iirc the wall was expanded at some point, maybe it's linked to that? idk.
On May 02 2014 09:33 Irrelevant Label wrote: I want to like it. I like a good stand against the common assumptions. Any set of ideas based on the others as the creators of the wall is pretty baseless though. Off the top of my head, if the wall is "theirs" why...
...has it been controlled by humans for the entire known history?* (*other than for a wrinkle that was the GRRM Night King). ...does it stop their forces from crossing while letting other things pass? ...is Melisandre in some 'alignment' with the obviously "anti-other" warding magic in it?
I can't speak for much else, but it would seem plausible that the wall hadn't always stopped others passing through and that a later entity (in alignment with fire - so Mel type stuff) came along and made it so they could not pass. After all, a massive coast to coast wall does provide a rather convenient barrier! Iirc the wall was expanded at some point, maybe it's linked to that? idk.
Technically the theory is possible. There is nothing that kills the theory and couldn't be explained if Martin chose to do so. It's just unlikely, there is just so little information that you could come up with any kind of theory and it would be technically possible. Like many others, there's nothing big that supports it besides the fact that it sounds cool.
On May 01 2014 17:09 Steveling wrote: The facts are a) night's king was killed by the king in the north and the king beyond the wall and b) there was no peace treaty or anything similar during his reign, only dark stories of horror, he was an usurper and probably x10 twisted as the worst Bolton ever. A man like that would certainly not act like a diplomat with some ice zombies, lol.
Both of these are pretty clear. Now if some of you wanted grrm to include a "he was so dead that he wouldn't be able to be risen/resurrected/cloned/transported from a parallel universe" line, then I'm afraid you just believe what you want to believe.
Also if something like that happened it would be a very hard deus ex machina formulation and grrm avoids it like the plague.
lol at 8,000 year old stories being told by 90 year old women to 7 year old boys as being "facts".
I don't even... That's the writer speaking, using old nan to give us information that we wouldn't have without her? This is like, I don't know, how can you not understand that.
>Writer wants to sneak in some info >Writer uses a support character to do that seamlessly >Reader argues that the character is not to be "trusted", xD
And something else, if you ignore all this you realise that this theory is just 100% made up. So why stop there, you can enrich your fantasy more, you should include some aliens, a genius math solving albino monkey and Sherlock Holmes in a unique cameo appearance. It all makes sense if you try really hard.
Yeah, he does use these characters to tell us information we would otherwise not know.... in a very vague and mysterious way, and even in ways that are purposely meant to mislead us. So you can't call her stories "facts".
Old Nan is where the magic comes from, and then in the end, we hopefully get to find out which of her crazy stories are true (besides the world residing in the blue eye of a giant, which is obviously true). And it's one of the reasons why the show is going to have spoil some things for us, because our narrator is a camera that doesn't lie.
I actually really like that popular reddit theory about Jon being the mediator between ice (the Others) and fire (Dany).
The Wall seems obviously not man-made, fits in with the Others. If the Others built the Wall -- then they're not simply malevolent conquerors. They've had need in the past to defend against something. Jon, the Stark/Targaryon hybrid, will bring that balance between fire and ice. north and south Westeros. The details beyond that... no idea, but that main gist of it feels like it fits. Then again, even R+L=J might be wrong and a lot of us are just spitballing off of unproven premises.
People seem to be agreeing that The Others can't pass the wall, but I'm not sure where this is made clear in the books? I know that there have been passing remarks about it, but who really knows?
The passage under the Nightfort was guarded by a magical weirwood door, that not only was bared from The Others, but from any human not part of the Night's Watch. There is no reason to think that The Wall itself is somehow protected against The Ohers, and not just that particular obviously magical gate.
EPT
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