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Post by Ser Duncan on Apr 8, 2016 17:00:38 GMT
Melifeather and I were just having a spin off talk in her Wheel of Time board here about the possible origins of the Others. Mel had an idea and I expanded on it. I'll try to put my thoughts on this here so we can talk about not just this idea, but also alternative ideas about how the Others / white walkers came about. What if the Others were at one point First Men? Luwin mentions that there was a lot of bloodshed in the first 2000 years of the First Men invading Westeros. And we know from Bran's visions that the First Men used to sacrifice people in front of their Heart Trees. Thanks to Some Pig No Doubt there is the suggestion that while the First Men no longer do this, there is still a nod to that tradition of giving blood to the trees in Ned cleaning his sword before it, after having executed a man, and Luwin himself choosing the Winterfell Heart Tree to bleed to death on. Now we also know that the land at that time of invasion was covered in both regular and weirwood trees. During the 2000 years of fighting one would imagine a lot of trees where chopped down and burned, especially in the southern half of Westeros. I would think the northern half was still quite populated with weirwoods though, because the Children brought down the Hammer of the Waters in the Neck as a way to stop the FM moving further north. So what if a particularly bloodthirsty group of First Men (akin to the Boltons of today) continued to chase and kill the Singers, even after there was peace between them? We have the word of Roose Bolton that they never stopped flaying people and did so without the knowledge of the Kings of Winter or the modern day Stark overlord. And we see Ramsay doing just this, chasing women through the forests with a pack of dogs, simply for the fun of the chase. This continued bloodshed could possibly have an unintended consequence of strengthening the Greenseers in the weirwoods on the Singer's lands. Blood is an organic nutrient in real life and in the case of Planetos, it also has magical associations. When the Greenseers grew in enough power and outrage, they might've decided to do something about these rogue First Men. Since a greenseer is the most powerful of skinchangers, they would have the ability to invade the bodies of these FM and turn them against their own. What might have started as a deterrent to simply stopping the FM from killing their race off, might have turned into something far worse. The Others. Over time, if the greenseers continued to keep hold of the bodies of these men, those bodies would've decayed and had to be rebuilt by the other element the greenseers have power over, water. In the north, water turns to ice and that ice can be sustained just as long as it stays cold and the Others/ww stay out of the sun and away from fire. Since it's been 8000 (or 6000) years since the initial take over of those bodies, these guys would look like the Others we see today. All body parts are now made and maintained with the aid of spells cast on water. And it would also explain why they speak in a language Will has no knowledge of. They would be speaking whatever language the First Men brought with them from Essos, not the Old Tongue or the language of the Singers or Giants. TL;DR:- The Others are skinchanged First Men, they inadvertently gave the Greenseers the power to skinchange them by their actions of continuing to hunt down and kill the Children of the Forest.
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 9, 2016 5:13:52 GMT
It's been a theory of mine that the Others were simply men...First Men to be exact, but they were cruel like the Boltons are in the current story. It is further my belief that the Wildlings are descendants of these evil First Men known by the Children as the Others. I like to imagine Old Nan's tales as actually being tales about the Children of the Forest, and that Old Nan is one of them. It would explain her long lifespan. How many waves of men invaded Westeros? Three? Four? First Men. Andals. Rhoynar. Targaryen. Seems to me the wheel of time kept bringing the Children conquering invaders. The timeline is wonky, because it's not correct. With each rotation of the wheel the Children setup their Cyvasse game a different way. They put up, changed, or removed a hinge. Each time they got another group of people invading Westeros, but the outcomes were slightly different. My current thought about the wights are that they are a manifestation of how the hinge was put up, changed, or removed. The wheel of time came around again and reflected the 8000 year old religion of the Ironmen and their drowned men upon the north...only the drowned men manifested themselves as wights. Patchface says the north is upside down, and they are under water. They are under water, because the essence of the Iron Islands now applies to the north. One of the questions that I'd like to find an answer to is, is magic everywhere or is it mainly contained north beyond the Wall? The reason why I ask is why the drowned men manifest themselves as wights automatically rising from the dead simply with a breath of cold air? Craster has been sacrificing his sons. Has for years. He thinks he's offering them to the gods, when in fact before the hinge was manipulated the babies simply perished in the woods like wolfmaid7 asserts, among others. BUT AFTER the hinge was manipulated these child sacrifices became white shadows, also due to the magical, cold air...a theory that I have been promoting for a few years.
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Post by wolfmaid7 on Apr 12, 2016 0:17:51 GMT
It's been a theory of mine that the Others were simply men...First Men to be exact, but they were cruel like the Boltons are in the current story. It is further my belief that the Wildlings are descendants of these evil First Men known by the Children as the Others. I like to imagine Old Nan's tales as actually being tales about the Children of the Forest, and that Old Nan is one of them. It would explain her long lifespan. How many waves of men invaded Westeros? Three? Four? First Men. Andals. Rhoynar. Targaryen. Seems to me the wheel of time kept bringing the Children conquering invaders. The timeline is wonky, because it's not correct. With each rotation of the wheel the Children setup their Cyvasse game a different way. They put up, changed, or removed a hinge. Each time they got another group of people invading Westeros, but the outcomes were slightly different. My current thought about the wights are that they are a manifestation of how the hinge was put up, changed, or removed. The wheel of time came around again and reflected the 8000 year old religion of the Ironmen and their drowned men upon the north...only the drowned men manifested themselves as wights. Patchface says the north is upside down, and they are under water. They are under water, because the essence of the Iron Islands now applies to the north. One of the questions that I'd like to find an answer to is, is magic everywhere or is it mainly contained north beyond the Wall? The reason why I ask is why the drowned men manifest themselves as wights automatically rising from the dead simply with a breath of cold air? Craster has been sacrificing his sons. Has for years. He thinks he's offering them to the gods, when in fact before the hinge was manipulated the babies simply perished in the woods like wolfmaid7 asserts, among others. BUT AFTER the hinge was manipulated these child sacrifices became white shadows, also due to the magical, cold air...a theory that I have been promoting for a few years.I don't remember this i remember the COTF probably eating the babies and ATS's the Wildlings are taking the babes to the COTF and even FFR's Golem made of air theory but i don't recall this.Would love to hear it.Anways,i think i can add an alternative one for consideration ,one that i've put forth on Heresy before.Like i said then,it is a better explanation than the babies just being dead but because i cannot envisioned any mechanism as in the process ,i put it on the back burner. Of all the theories i've heard on the origin of the Others i have to say i find JNR's explanation most plausible and fluid because we have precedence to how the mechanism could work via the Shadowbinding. That they are the cast off of a man i think we will find that man entomed to a Weirwood tree some where and he's most likely a Stark. My alternative started with something V6 said when he was making his Nirvana trip through nature. First we have to look at one of the tenants of belief expressed by people beyond the Wall and the COTF.When V6s brother "bump" died the Woodwitch said he's gone into the eaarth,into the rock etc.The COTF essentially believe the same thing that when they die they go back into nature to become one with the gods. So lets see what happens to the babies initially: "You have no sons, you expose them, Gilly said as much, you leave them in the woods, that's why you have only wives here, and daughters who grow up to be wives." "Hearth tales. Does Craster seem less than human to you?" In half a hundred ways. "He gives his sons to the wood." A long silence. Then: "Yes." And "Yes," the raven muttered, strutting. "Yes, yes, yes." "You knew? Rght off we know he leaves them in the wood and like i say they die.The temp kills them.Like "bump" where do they go? Their bodies become food and their bones litter the floor ,their spirits go into nature .Who or what inhabits or is the wood. We get a hint from V6. "He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything thats in it, he thought, exulting.." V6 is a Skinchanger and before his body died he had an experiance that allowed him to inhabit nature from the clouds in the sky,birds in the air and the earthworms beneath. So maybe this is how the GSs utilize Craster's sacrifice.Where their bodies die become the womb for their rebirth. This is my version of how the mechanism might go,again not sold on it.
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 12, 2016 2:05:56 GMT
It's hard to find the oldest post where I was referring to white shadows, but here's one: Heresy 45I didn't begin asserting the Others were ordinary men until Heresy discussed Heart of Darkness. My work on the Wheel of Time project seems to agree with those suspicions. At this point in the project it seems as if the white walkers are separate from wights. The reason why I say this is because the white walkers don't appear to mirror any part in the religion of the Drowned God. They mirror Melisandre's creations, so my suspicions point towards Val and her "sister" Dalla before her. It seems as if I've stumbled upon the source of the wights. It has to do with the manipulation of the warding on the hinge which has has caused the religion of the Ironmen to reflect onto the north. The Ironborn drown their believers and then raise them back to life. Patchface tells us the north is underwater, so in effect the Nights Watch are drowned men, and when they die they rise again stronger, harder, just like the Drowned God religion. As for Craster...I think he really was leaving them exposed in the woods. "Somebody" - maybe Dalla, maybe Val - maybe Mance - told him it would bring him protection if he left his sons in the woods. Whoever told him that wanted them to make white shadows...drawing their life force out like Melisandre draws shadowbabies from Stannis. Stannis is a grown man, yet Melisandre births shadows like babies. Melisandre draws out life from Stannis like a vampire. Our blood is our life-force, so imo it seems logical that you could take a baby's life-force...his blood, and create a white shadow.[/quote]
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Post by Maester Flagons on Apr 12, 2016 2:52:19 GMT
Well! The connections between greenseers in the trees and the Others is a widespread theory. Different mechanics but similar origin. An old thought of mine is the human greenseers can not go into the trees as the Singers greenseers do. The human spirits become detached from the cotf godhead then became available for an 'Othering.' The spirits/consciousness are reserved in a colder place. Whether the cotf knew this would happen to the humans or it was an unforseen consequence... I can't decide.
The language of the Others trips me up a little. Is it the old tongue, a true tongue, or a foreign tongue? Same question for Coldhands when he speaks a strange language for the elk when it dies. What language is that?
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 12, 2016 3:26:40 GMT
I think it's going to turn out that small, inner group of wildlings have been creating the white walkers: Mance, Dalla, Val, and maybe some of the men closest to Mance. Craster has probably been exposing his sons for a long time... wolfmaid7 called that one. What I think is different is that his sacrifices actually do end up getting used to make white shadows, but its a fairly new occurrence beginning shortly before Waymar Royce is killed. The hinge at the Wall has been opened. I'm not sure which way to go with this one, but either Bran did it because he's trying to defeat the Others, or Euron did it in order to conquer Westeros. And of course Euron could just be taking advantage of what Bran is doing. I know it sounds weird...but if you've been following my wheel of time project you probably know what I mean. Edited to add, something I've also just posted on the W: The shadows Melisandre drew from Stannis weren't being skinchanged, so I see no reason to believe that the white shadows would be either. Their shape or form is preserved, because ice preserves. The wights move, because the cold animates the spirit trapped in the bones. This is the ice version of the stone men whose stoney exteriors appear to trap the living. The reason why the wights rise is due to the warding of the hinge of the Wall. There are interwoven spells. The physical ice of the Wall is the door, but the spells are the hinge that holds the door. So I agree with you on one point Wolfmaid, the white walkers are separate from the wights. They are not from the same origin. Where we differ, I am thinking, are my thoughts that some form of life-force is drawn upon to create white shadows. The wights are merely a side effect of the warded hinge on the Wall.
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Post by Ser Duncan on Apr 12, 2016 15:21:19 GMT
The wights are merely a side effect of the warded hinge on the Wall. I agree, the Others and the wights are not of the same origin. But what happened to open this hinge recently that would cause the dead to rise? Is it simply that the WWs are now picking up Craster's boys and using them?
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 12, 2016 15:24:40 GMT
The wights are merely a side effect of the warded hinge on the Wall. I agree, the Others and the wights are not of the same origin. But what happened to open this hinge recently that would cause the dead to rise? Is it simply that the WWs are now picking up Craster's boys and using them? You know, I kind of agree with your last statement that they are just taking advantage of the situation. I haven't decided who manipulated the hinge. I can go either way. It's either Bran or Euron.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Apr 14, 2016 21:39:57 GMT
I guess the Others are much like the Undying of Qarth. Where the Undying are paper husks with the Others are preserved in ice. Westeros has that market being the only continent with land so far north. The Undying though, they seem like Others and wights. If the Undying are kept alive in the blue corrupted heart then the bodies are just slaves. Slaves waiting to devour the living. Eh?
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 14, 2016 22:41:11 GMT
I had a sort of epiphany this morning when a poster on the W asked me if I thought the direwolves were given as a way to reshape the future. I think this poster expected me to say that the Children/old gods gifted the direwolves to the Starks for a specific purpose, but it actually caused me to realize that it was the Others that sent the mother direwolf and pups south to make the Starks think they were sent by the old gods. I no longer believe they were sent by the old gods and here's why.
To review my theory that Westeros runs in cycles. The ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a snake eating its own tail. What has happened before will happen again. The four major invasions of Westeros need to be viewed from the perspective of the Children. The first group were the First Men, and I believe they were the most dangerous, because they took up the old gods as their "religion". Why is this a bad thing? Because they abused the power that magic allows. They learned that by blood sacrifice they could create white shadow walkers and bring about an extension of winter which would also allow them to raise the dead as wights to use as soldiers. The First Men were so dangerous to the Children that they began referring to them as "the Others". The Children determined that severe action was needed to save Westeros and themselves and they turned to fire magic in order to counter the ice magic the First Men were now using. This may have required massive amounts of blood sacrifice on their part as well, but they would have viewed it as necessary. The comet was conjured, the moon was struck, the meteors rained down on Westeros, and nearly all human life was exterminated. This was how the Long Night ended...the Long Night of terror inflicted upon Westeros by the First Men. There were very few First Men that the Children trusted, and one was the Last Hero. He survived and was given the task as shield in the north, and thus was the origin of House Stark. House Stark's job is to make sure ice magic was never used and to keep offenders north of the Wall. Any remaining First Men were rounded up and pushed north and contained behind a magical hinge...a ward. Physically they probably could still walk past it, but ice magic would no longer work south of the Wall, so they stayed and plotted their return. Eventually castles were built along this hinge and a physical Wall as well. The physical Wall acted like a door, but the warding was still the hinge.
The Children readied themselves for the next rotation of the ouroboros. They knew another invasion was coming, so just like setting up a cyvasse game they changed some pieces around and introduced "religion" into the game. The Andals came with their Faith of the Seven, but they too cut down trees and persecuted the Children, so fighting broke out again. The wisest of them came together and forged a Pact. It's not clear how the Children were able to bring the Andals to the table, but they must have noticed the ruined castles and large basalt chunks of moon meteor and realized the strength of natural disaster that the old gods had at their disposal. The Pact included a "no magic" clause, which likely pleased the Andals since they were so rabid about their faith. The Andals helped fill needed manpower on the Wall and the physical door of the Wall began to take shape.
So to review, the Pact was an agreement to keep humans from practicing magic and discouraged the worshipping of the old gods, instead the Andals were to enforce the Faith of the Seven. Their maesters were supposed to be installed in every major castle to monitor the Houses, instruct the families, and maybe even kill off any gifted children that showed skinchanging ability.
The next rotation of the ouroboros brought the Rhoynar, but somehow they stayed south and only affected Dorne. Nymeria intermarried with the Martells and together they defeated all the smaller kingdoms and united Dorne under one ruler. Maybe the Andals were successful enough at uniting the kingdoms that they were able to keep the Rhoynar in Dorne?
The next rotation of the ouroboros brought the Targaryens and dragons, but not without earlier visits by Targaryens gathering intel. I am wondering if contacts were made with the Children as evidenced by Jenny of Oldstones and her "woods witch"? In any case, fire magic was successful, because ice magic was already contained.
Fast forward to the current story and ice magic is creeping back into the realm. Something has happened to the hinge, or warding on the Wall, because the direwolves are back south of the Wall and so are the wildlings. It's not like the people of Westeros would feel the hinge being opened, but it does have an effect on how situations unfold. The hinge opened and the "pieces on the ouroboros got moved into different positions. The Greyjoys are the next conquerors of Westeros due to them taking the invader position. Ned's Stark's "bastard" gets positioned at the Wall and allows the First Men/Others descendants through the Wall...everyone knows if you invite a faerie in they can work their mischief. The wildlings now have guest right, and with the hinge open they can work ice magic south of the Wall again. There's a giant snowstorm emanating out of Winterfell and the First Men in the crypts are just waiting for someone to let them out.
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Post by Ser Duncan on Apr 15, 2016 2:00:40 GMT
The Undying though, they seem like Others and wights. If the Undying are kept alive in the blue corrupted heart then the bodies are just slaves. Slaves waiting to devour the living. Eh? Ya know what I've had this thought before and you just reminded me of an old, old (small) theory I had. The blue heart of the Undying is the same force that is controlling the wights. The Other are probably tapping into the same magical power source. I wonder what would happen if instead of a dragon destroying the heart, the heart was stabbed with dragonglass.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Apr 15, 2016 6:05:02 GMT
The Undying though, they seem like Others and wights. If the Undying are kept alive in the blue corrupted heart then the bodies are just slaves. Slaves waiting to devour the living. Eh? Ya know what I've had this thought before and you just reminded me of an old, old (small) theory I had. The blue heart of the Undying is the same force that is controlling the wights. The Other are probably tapping into the same magical power source. I wonder what would happen if instead of a dragon destroying the heart, the heart was stabbed with dragonglass. I was having a very similar thought just now. Dragon fire took out the Undying and dragonglass took out the Other, Ser Puddles. So I see where your going with that. The Undying are just shells with their essence being held in the heart. So too are the cold ones. But the cold keeps them strong.
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Post by ac on Apr 16, 2016 17:33:49 GMT
I think it's going to turn out that small, inner group of wildlings have been creating the white walkers: Mance, Dalla, Val, and maybe some of the men closest to Mance. If this is true any thoughts on why Mance bothered to also create a Wildling army? If nothing else uniting the Wildlings must have been a monumental pain in the ass.
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 16, 2016 19:04:20 GMT
I think it's going to turn out that small, inner group of wildlings have been creating the white walkers: Mance, Dalla, Val, and maybe some of the men closest to Mance. If this is true any thoughts on why Mance bothered to also create a Wildling army? If nothing else uniting the Wildlings must have been a monumental pain in the ass. I'll try to condense what is actually a very long answer! Part of which can be explained if you read my Drowned Man essay. In a nutshell, Mance was just taking advantage of ice magic working again, which it hadn't in 8000 years. The dead were rising because of the hinge on the Wall being manipulated, and the 8000 year old religion of the Drowned God was rising the dead as wights. Dalla, and later Val were creating white walkers to scare the Nights Watch into believing the wildlings needed saving. Their plan succeeded, because most of the wildlings are now south of the Wall.
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Post by ac on Apr 16, 2016 19:38:46 GMT
Cool, I'll read the essay.
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