THE WHITE WALKERS AND THE OTHERING
Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, ‘Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, and they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys. GRRM, Assignment X Interview, 2011
So far, in the book, we have encountered Others handful of times: interestingly enough – in the prologue of Game of Thrones, then during the battle at the Fist of the First Men and when Sam kills one with the Dragonglass. Therefore, not much is known about them. What we do know is that they have a language, they can create things out of ice with magical properties, they raise dead for their army, they can be killed by Obsidian (Dragonglass), Valyrian steel blades and fire and as of the S04E04 of Game of Thrones (if this should be viewed as a potential The Winds of Winter spoiler) they apparently can’t reproduce, as humans do, due to the apparent lack of female Others, but instead they are using human descendants (I will address this later), which they turn into Others using the magical properties, as we have seen in the case of Craster’s sons. What little we do know often comes from the tales passed down from generation to generation and in our case, namely from Tormund and Old Nan, who as far as we know, never met them face to face.
– They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.
– 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?
From this little bit here it is safe to say how Tormund never actually encountered a White Walker up close and personal, as Sam did, otherwise he would tell us a bit about their ice swords that shatter the steel, their armors and their milk pale skin. On the other hand we have Old Nan who is a bit more precise in her fear:
– The Others…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, 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 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 the 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 those 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 magic’s 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……
Her story, although didactic and informative, is a bit ambiguous and it should be understood not only as a tale of the past but as a prophecy too. Everything Old Nan says is, to my understanding, not only something that had happened in the past, but also something that will, as a loop, happen in the future, as in history is repeating itself. The only proof of this notion, besides my gut, is the advice of the writer himself:
“Remember Old Nan’s stories, Bran. Remember the way she told them, the sound of her voice. So long as you do that, part of her will always be alive in you.”
While some of her stories serve a merely expository function, when you read this particular sentence you come to realize how some others contain some deeper clues upon closer inspection and how there is, in fact, a considerable amount of foreshadowing hidden in her storytelling.
Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes. (AGOT, 160)
This boy is clearly Bran Stark. Whether foreshadowing, past or a prophecy, Old Nan’s story came true. In the future who is the Last Hero then? Many argue it is Azor Ahai, and although this might be the case I cannot help but wonder what if the Last Hero from Old Nan’s tales is, in fact, Jon Snow. If you are familiar with my Jon Snow theory, then you know I firmly believe in his eventual resurrection via Bloodraven-Theon-Bran connection. If this belief is correct, what then? What happens next? Let’s take a closer look at the tale:
So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children (…) 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.
– determined to seek out children: and his brother Bran (a vision in the form of a tree) who is with them, which is exactly what Bloodraven wants for this is his long con
– with a sword (The Longclaw), a horse, a dog (Ghost) and dozen companions (Men of the Night’s Watch still loyal to him)
– and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it…This is very interesting since we know Lightbringer never snapped (if the Lightbringer is actually a sword and not The Night’s Watch or a dragon), in fact, it was the ultimate weapon, which was used in the fight against the White Walkers, so the story is either twisted a bit or it tells the future events and not the past ones as we were lead to believe. Speaking of which, why would Azor Ahai seek out Children in the land of the dead (of Always Winter) before the Wall was built and before they moved north of the Wall after the White Walkers were defeated. It makes no sense. Unless, the Last Hero she talks about is the Last Hero I am talking about. In his dreams Jon Snow saw himself armored in black ice (resembling an Other), wielding the fiery sword (Lightbringer), which tells me his dream is, in the context of information we already have, a paradox, or, what we already know is not necessarily the truth.
What we do know is that Azor Ahai somehow defeated the White Walkers, which lead to the creation of the Wall (by Bran the Builder, the founder of the House Stark) that will protect the realms of men and consequently to the creation of the Night’s Watch order that will see this protection through, with Starks as the Guardians of the North. Over a short period of time, for some reason, the Children of the Forest moved north of the Wall, into the territory of the enemy they so vigorously fought to destroy.
As I speculated before, this is not how things went down. The few scarce stories that depict White Walkers or the Others, are the classic example of Othering. Othering is a process or a rhetorical device in which one group is seen as “us” and another group as “them”. In other words, by “Othering”, we mean any action by which an individual or group (White Walkers/The Others) becomes mentally classified in somebody’s mind (the contemporary Westerosi; and the reader) as “not one of us”. Rather than always remembering that every person is a complex bundle of emotions, ideas, urges, motivations, reflexes, priorities, and many other subtle aspects, it’s sometimes easier to dismiss them as being in some way less human, and less worthy of respect and dignity, than we are. Intergroup bias is a well-established psychological term and is, to my mind, highly used (by George R. R. Martin) in the creation of the Others and the context they live in as seen from the examples I used (Old Nan and Tormund).
It is my belief the Wall was created by the Others themselves who either sought a hideout from the realms of men or who built the Wall using their magical powers in agreement with the Stark to protect themselves from the upcoming events as seen through the Weirwoods or any other premonition. The event I am talking about is the fire magic that will appear as the real threat, several thousand years in the future, not so much to the Westeros as to the North (South and North of the Wall) and its way of living. I am more inclined to believe in the latter.
Another theory posits how the Last Hero was a diplomat who sealed the deal with the marriage, as it was the common thing to do in this time.
This pact was sealed as many agreements in the series are, with a marriage. A Stark or one of the ancestors of the Starks, married the queen of the Others and reigned at the Wall, presiding jointly with his strange bride over a sort of demilitarized zone between Men and Others. The Others, then, fulfilled their side of the agreement. They went away and left Men alone.
Men, unfortunately, did not keep up their end of the bargain. A large population of them has taken up residence on the wrong side of the Wall. They may be violating some now unknown and unremembered term of the agreement.
Although this is seems plausible at the first glance the problem is as it follows – If this was customary why was the Night’s King hunted down for doing the exact same thing then? And keep in mind, according to the legend The Others got defeated before Night’s King met his lovely wife. And while I do believe some kind of agreement took place (between the Children, the Starks and the First Men) I don’t believe this is how things went down, at least not for the reasoning behind the act pointed out here. Therefore, I propose something else.
Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, ‘Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, and they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys. GRRM, Assignment X Interview, 2011
So far, in the book, we have encountered Others handful of times: interestingly enough – in the prologue of Game of Thrones, then during the battle at the Fist of the First Men and when Sam kills one with the Dragonglass. Therefore, not much is known about them. What we do know is that they have a language, they can create things out of ice with magical properties, they raise dead for their army, they can be killed by Obsidian (Dragonglass), Valyrian steel blades and fire and as of the S04E04 of Game of Thrones (if this should be viewed as a potential The Winds of Winter spoiler) they apparently can’t reproduce, as humans do, due to the apparent lack of female Others, but instead they are using human descendants (I will address this later), which they turn into Others using the magical properties, as we have seen in the case of Craster’s sons. What little we do know often comes from the tales passed down from generation to generation and in our case, namely from Tormund and Old Nan, who as far as we know, never met them face to face.
– They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.
– 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?
From this little bit here it is safe to say how Tormund never actually encountered a White Walker up close and personal, as Sam did, otherwise he would tell us a bit about their ice swords that shatter the steel, their armors and their milk pale skin. On the other hand we have Old Nan who is a bit more precise in her fear:
– The Others…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, 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 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 the 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 those 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 magic’s 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……
Her story, although didactic and informative, is a bit ambiguous and it should be understood not only as a tale of the past but as a prophecy too. Everything Old Nan says is, to my understanding, not only something that had happened in the past, but also something that will, as a loop, happen in the future, as in history is repeating itself. The only proof of this notion, besides my gut, is the advice of the writer himself:
“Remember Old Nan’s stories, Bran. Remember the way she told them, the sound of her voice. So long as you do that, part of her will always be alive in you.”
While some of her stories serve a merely expository function, when you read this particular sentence you come to realize how some others contain some deeper clues upon closer inspection and how there is, in fact, a considerable amount of foreshadowing hidden in her storytelling.
Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes. (AGOT, 160)
This boy is clearly Bran Stark. Whether foreshadowing, past or a prophecy, Old Nan’s story came true. In the future who is the Last Hero then? Many argue it is Azor Ahai, and although this might be the case I cannot help but wonder what if the Last Hero from Old Nan’s tales is, in fact, Jon Snow. If you are familiar with my Jon Snow theory, then you know I firmly believe in his eventual resurrection via Bloodraven-Theon-Bran connection. If this belief is correct, what then? What happens next? Let’s take a closer look at the tale:
So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children (…) 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.
– determined to seek out children: and his brother Bran (a vision in the form of a tree) who is with them, which is exactly what Bloodraven wants for this is his long con
– with a sword (The Longclaw), a horse, a dog (Ghost) and dozen companions (Men of the Night’s Watch still loyal to him)
– and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it…This is very interesting since we know Lightbringer never snapped (if the Lightbringer is actually a sword and not The Night’s Watch or a dragon), in fact, it was the ultimate weapon, which was used in the fight against the White Walkers, so the story is either twisted a bit or it tells the future events and not the past ones as we were lead to believe. Speaking of which, why would Azor Ahai seek out Children in the land of the dead (of Always Winter) before the Wall was built and before they moved north of the Wall after the White Walkers were defeated. It makes no sense. Unless, the Last Hero she talks about is the Last Hero I am talking about. In his dreams Jon Snow saw himself armored in black ice (resembling an Other), wielding the fiery sword (Lightbringer), which tells me his dream is, in the context of information we already have, a paradox, or, what we already know is not necessarily the truth.
What we do know is that Azor Ahai somehow defeated the White Walkers, which lead to the creation of the Wall (by Bran the Builder, the founder of the House Stark) that will protect the realms of men and consequently to the creation of the Night’s Watch order that will see this protection through, with Starks as the Guardians of the North. Over a short period of time, for some reason, the Children of the Forest moved north of the Wall, into the territory of the enemy they so vigorously fought to destroy.
As I speculated before, this is not how things went down. The few scarce stories that depict White Walkers or the Others, are the classic example of Othering. Othering is a process or a rhetorical device in which one group is seen as “us” and another group as “them”. In other words, by “Othering”, we mean any action by which an individual or group (White Walkers/The Others) becomes mentally classified in somebody’s mind (the contemporary Westerosi; and the reader) as “not one of us”. Rather than always remembering that every person is a complex bundle of emotions, ideas, urges, motivations, reflexes, priorities, and many other subtle aspects, it’s sometimes easier to dismiss them as being in some way less human, and less worthy of respect and dignity, than we are. Intergroup bias is a well-established psychological term and is, to my mind, highly used (by George R. R. Martin) in the creation of the Others and the context they live in as seen from the examples I used (Old Nan and Tormund).
It is my belief the Wall was created by the Others themselves who either sought a hideout from the realms of men or who built the Wall using their magical powers in agreement with the Stark to protect themselves from the upcoming events as seen through the Weirwoods or any other premonition. The event I am talking about is the fire magic that will appear as the real threat, several thousand years in the future, not so much to the Westeros as to the North (South and North of the Wall) and its way of living. I am more inclined to believe in the latter.
Another theory posits how the Last Hero was a diplomat who sealed the deal with the marriage, as it was the common thing to do in this time.
This pact was sealed as many agreements in the series are, with a marriage. A Stark or one of the ancestors of the Starks, married the queen of the Others and reigned at the Wall, presiding jointly with his strange bride over a sort of demilitarized zone between Men and Others. The Others, then, fulfilled their side of the agreement. They went away and left Men alone.
Men, unfortunately, did not keep up their end of the bargain. A large population of them has taken up residence on the wrong side of the Wall. They may be violating some now unknown and unremembered term of the agreement.
Although this is seems plausible at the first glance the problem is as it follows – If this was customary why was the Night’s King hunted down for doing the exact same thing then? And keep in mind, according to the legend The Others got defeated before Night’s King met his lovely wife. And while I do believe some kind of agreement took place (between the Children, the Starks and the First Men) I don’t believe this is how things went down, at least not for the reasoning behind the act pointed out here. Therefore, I propose something else.
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