Difference between revisions of "Others"

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(The reason for the name change for the show HAS been explained by the producers, contrary to what the article stated, also more recent episodes than the first season show the Others as described in the books so I removed that they had been changed)
(White Walkers)
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The '''Others''', also known as the '''white walkers''', are a species of humanoid beings that exist in the north [[beyond the Wall]]. At the start of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', the Others have supposedly not been seen for eight thousand years.
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The '''Others''', also known as the '''white walkers''', are a species of humanoid beings that exist in the north [[beyond the Wall]]. At the start of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', the Others have supposedly not been seen for eight thousand years. In the HBO [[Game of Thrones|TV series]], they are known as '''White Walkers'''.
  
 
==History==
 
==History==
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==Characteristics==
 
==Characteristics==
 
[[File:John_Picacio_the_Others.jpg‎| The Others ‎- © 2012 John Picacio|thumb|300px|right]]
 
[[File:John_Picacio_the_Others.jpg‎| The Others ‎- © 2012 John Picacio|thumb|300px|right]]
The Others appear in the prologue to AGoT as tall and gaunt with flesh pale as milk and blue eyes, deeper and bluer than human eyes, burning like ice, as bright as blue stars, and as cold. {{ref|aCoK|23}} The white walker who married the [[Night's King]] is similarly described as having skin as pale as the moon and eyes like blue stars. [[Old Nan]] declares them to be cold dead things, hating all life, but in an email to the comic-book artist Tommy Patterson [[George R. R. Martin]] wrote  
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The Others appear in the prologue to ''[[A Game of Thrones]]'' as tall and gaunt with flesh pale as milk and blue eyes, deeper and bluer than human eyes, burning like ice, as bright as blue stars, and as cold. {{ref|aCoK|23}} The white walker who married the [[Night's King]] is similarly described as having skin as pale as the moon and eyes like blue stars. [[Old Nan]] declares them to be cold dead things, hating all life, but in an email to the comic-book artist Tommy Patterson [[George R. R. Martin]] wrote  
 
{{Quote|The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the [[w:Sidhe|Sidhe]] made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous. <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=i_SorqUvsOEC&lpg=PT203&ots=5oK3EkTd8Y&pg=PT203#v=onepage&q&f=false A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1] </ref>}}
 
{{Quote|The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the [[w:Sidhe|Sidhe]] made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous. <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=i_SorqUvsOEC&lpg=PT203&ots=5oK3EkTd8Y&pg=PT203#v=onepage&q&f=false A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1] </ref>}}
 
They wear reflective armour that shifts in colour with every step - rather like the stealth armour once said to have been worn by the [[children of the forest]].
 
They wear reflective armour that shifts in colour with every step - rather like the stealth armour once said to have been worn by the [[children of the forest]].

Revision as of 14:55, 18 February 2014

Other or white walker. Art by Rene Aigner©
Others by Mathia Arkoniel©

Demons made of snow and ice and cold...The ancient enemy. The only enemy that matters. [1]

Stannis Baratheon describing the Others


The Others, also known as the white walkers, are a species of humanoid beings that exist in the north beyond the Wall. At the start of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Others have supposedly not been seen for eight thousand years. In the HBO TV series, they are known as White Walkers.

History

According to legend, the Others first appeared approximately 8,000 years before the War of Conquest, during a winter that lasted a generation and a period of darkness known as the Long Night. Eventually they were defeated, supposedly by the Night's Watch in the Battle for the Dawn, and the Wall may have been raised as a defense against them.

In apparent contradiction the Night's King appears to have married a white walker, but after he was defeated the Others are supposedly not heard of again and became regarded south of the Wall as nothing more than fairy tales to frighten the little children.

Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, in conversation with Tyrion Lannister, refers to white walkers being glimpsed by fisherfolk on the shore near Eastwatch, with little concern. He does not say whether they were glimpsed on the shore north of the Wall or on the shore to the south of the Wall. Tyrion, unable to hold his tongue at the mention of white walkers, replies that fisherfolk of Lannisport often glimpse merlings.[2] The conversation then moves to the movements of the wildlings which they consider a more pressing concern.

The Others' first appearance in the saga is in the Prologue of the first book, killing two rangers of the Night's Watch. Craster gives up his infant sons to the Others, and his wives declare that they become white walkers themselves, although this has yet to be verified.

Characteristics

The Others ‎- © 2012 John Picacio

The Others appear in the prologue to A Game of Thrones as tall and gaunt with flesh pale as milk and blue eyes, deeper and bluer than human eyes, burning like ice, as bright as blue stars, and as cold. [3] The white walker who married the Night's King is similarly described as having skin as pale as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Old Nan declares them to be cold dead things, hating all life, but in an email to the comic-book artist Tommy Patterson George R. R. Martin wrote

The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous. [4]

They wear reflective armour that shifts in colour with every step - rather like the stealth armour once said to have been worn by the children of the forest. According to Patterson,

Had many talks with George. He told me of the ice swords, and the reflective, camouflaging armor that picks up the images of the things around it like a clear, still pond. He spoke a lot about what they were not, but what they were was harder to put into words.

The Others appear to be superior swordsmen, wielding thin crystal swords said to be so cold as to shatter any object they touch, including the steel blades favoured by the Night's Watch. [5] The sword of the Other that Samwell Tarly slays gleams with a faint blue glow. When the ice blue blade brushes the flames of Grenn's torch a screech as sharp as a needle stabs Sam's ears. When asked if he knows what substance an Other sword is made from Martin answered,

Ice. But not like regular old ice. The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it. [6]

The Others go lightly on the snow and leave no prints to mark their passage. Their movements can be lighting quick. Their language is unknown, although readers have speculated that it may be the Old Tongue. When one speaks in the prologue his voice is said to sound like the cracking of ice, but this may simply have been a figure of speech. The wildlings believe the Others and their wights can smell life, or rather its warmth. Old Nan used to say that there were wildlings that would lay with the Others to birth half-human children. [7][8]

The old stories reveal uncertainty whether the Others come when it is cold or that it becomes cold when they appear, during snowstorms or mist and melt away when the skies clear. They hide from the light of the sun and emerge at night; although once again some stories claim that their coming brings the night.

There are tales of Others riding the corpses of dead animals such as bears, direwolves, mammoths, and horses. The Other, called Puddles, that Samwell Tarly slays is riding Mawney’s dead horse. Hoarfrost covers it like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails drag from its open belly. On its back is a rider as pale as ice. The Others can be accompanied by "giant ice spiders" as big as hounds.[9]

Melisandre thinks that Others are servants of the Great Other, allegedly an evil god of darkness, cold, and death who wages eternal war against R'hllor.

an Other - by TheMico ©

As the wildlings are passing through the Wall to settle on the Gift, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch Jon Snow asks Tormund Giantsbane to tell him of their foe, the Others. He tells him he wants to know all there is to know of the Others.

Tormund is plainly uncomfortable with the mention of the Others; he tells Jon that he does not want to discuss them, not here, not on the northern side of the Wall. He then glances uneasily towards the trees in their snowy white mantles. He says to Jon:

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. [10]

Jon asks if the Others troubled the wildlings on their way to the Wall. Tormund informs him that they never came in force, if that’s what Jon is meaning, but they were with them all the same, nibbling at their edges. They lost more outriders than he cares to think about, and it was worth your life to fall behind or wander off. Every nightfall they would ring their camps with fire. Tormund says they don’t like fire much:

When the snows came though…snow and sleet and freezing rain, its bloody hard to find dry wood or get your kindling lit, and the cold…some nights our fires just seemed to shrivel up and die. Nights like that, you always find some dead come the morning. ‘Less they find you first.[10]

He says to Jon:

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? [10]

Weakness

The Others have a few known weaknesses that are recorded in ancient texts. One is obsidian, otherwise called dragonglass or "frozen fire". When Samwell Tarly accidentally stabs an Other with an obsidian dagger, its flesh and bones melt away leaving only an icy puddle. Ancient texts also record a weakness to "dragonsteel", which several have taken to be Valyrian steel. Mance Rayder expresses belief that magic wards in the Wall prevent the Others from crossing into the Seven Kingdoms.

After listening to Tormund’s words Jon Snow remembers all the things that Sam had told him, the things he’d found in his old books. He thinks to himself that Longclaw had been forged in the fires of old Valyria, forged in dragonflame and set with spells. Dragonsteel, Sam had called it. Stronger than any common steel, lighter, harder, sharper … But he thinks that words in a book were one thing. He knows that the true test comes in battle.

Wights

Wights are dead men or creatures raised up by the Others, seemingly when touched by the cold that accompanies them. [11] They are thralls to the Others. Men who fall in battle against the Others must be burned, or else the dead will rise again as their thralls.

TV series

White Walker as depicted in the TV series

The Others, as they are often known in the novels and were still known by this name in the first draft of the pilot script of the TV series, were later renamed to White Walkers instead. In the audio commentary for Winter is Coming, producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss explained that the change was made to avoid confusion that may arise between references to the race known as the Others and "others" meaning other groups or people within the show. Benioff and Weiss explain:

We call them White Walkers in the show, more often known as the Others in the books and the reason for the change is simply that people would refer to 'the Others' and viewers who didn’t know the books would think: "Which others are we talking about? The other whats?"

Quotes

The Others are as dead as the children of the forest , gone eight thousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all. No living man has ever seen one. [12]

Eddard Stark to Catelyn Stark


The Others are only a story, a tale to make children shiver. If they ever lived at all, they are gone eight thousand years. [13]

Jon Snow


If the Others ever come for us, I pray they have archers, because you lot are fit for nothing more than arrow fodder. [14]

Alliser Thorne


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- [15]

Old Nan

References and Notes

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Night's Watch. The list of authors can be seen in the page history of Night's Watch. As with A Wiki of Ice and Fire, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.