Big thanks for the shoutout, on this subject I have a lot of thoughts but for the most part it’s rooted in the differences between them and dragons. As Aemon says in AFFC, Septon Barth saw that dragons gender is as changeable as flame, tying into what you said about fire having connotations of motherhood - all dragons can be mothers. Meanwhile, Others (the opposite of dragons) are sexless, neither male nor female, a ‘different kind of life’. There is the evidence that they are Craster’s sons, as well as their habit of collecting babies as shown in the myth of Nights King, but this is all folklore and speculation of a scared people, so we cannot say definitively that they are all male. But in both of the above they play into the lust of a man to further their own goals, be it sending a corpse-like woman to intice the nights king, or allowing Craster to survive in the wilds and play out his strange daughter-wife thing, so if nothing else the Others are intelligent enough to understand the desires of men. If anything they actually have more in common with someone like Cersei who uses fear and sexuality to rule rather than outright force exhibited by most of the powerful men in the series. They are described frequently as being human-like but not quite human, I see no reason to believe they’d exist within a strict gender binary when their direct opposite in universe doesn’t. That said, the others are very heavily male-coded, so I think it is equally possible they’re literally all dudes, like how it was in the show. I think this is a subversion of classical fantasy tropes of ice being feminine, with ‘ice queen’ characters being far more common than ‘ice kings’ (shoutout adventure time for also subverting this).
I've wondered about this subject a lot! I'm dying to know everything about the Others but the show runners decided non of the lore meant anything. Great video 🔥
What I really want to know now is why the Others accept sheep in place of sons when Craster doesn't have them to offer. What are they doing with the sheep? They don't need to eat.
I think he sacrifices animals just to prove he still a willing servant of the Others but he has no sons at the moment. It's a way of saying "Hey, Others! I'm still your bro. No sons right now. But here's a pig. Please don't kill me."
@@copyninja8756 I mean we don't know WHAT they do with the sons. Could be anything. And doubtful we'll ever find out since the series most likely will never be finished
@@KevinPendragon I guess I find it most surprising the others are okay with it instead of just killing HIM (he is a man after all) and his wives. It would be really interesting to know what they do with the sons that would make waiting a better trade off for them, and shows they have some kind of intelligence and concept of long term goals vs immediate satisfaction/doing something because it's just their nature (like a tidal wave)
Wait, you mean I'm not going to get the voice tht makes everyone sound like either a little old man or a little old lady anymore? Damn. I'm gonna miss little old lady Dany. I'm not joking either. Over all this time, that's her voice to me now, and I'm going to miss it if we ever get another book.
Oh! You mentioned the Lady of Spears while compairing The Others and The Unsullied...it makes me wonder, who is The Other version of The Lady of Spears. Is it the woman that the 13th Lord Comander took for a wife, the Cropse Queen? If the Lady of Spears is the place where the Unsullied bring their manhood (thereby making them Unsullied and in a way being their creator), then the Corpse Queen is a good parallel as the woman who gave up her children to The Others. Also, it's very interesting that you say that the Norns in the sequel to Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn are kidnapping human women as their concubines so that they have multiple wives! It reminds me of the Iron Born!
Great video! While I generally agree with you, I have a different spin. I think the Others are cold and vengeful now, but they are trying to steal the fire from humanity to regain the ability they lost to recreate, through the sacrifice of Dany. In other words, they want eactly what the Undying of Qarth wanted from Dany in the House of the Undying... Besides Tad Williams, George R.R. Martin is also very heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard, and his last Conan story, 'Red Nails', featured an undying white queen who required the sacrifice of babies and children to maintain her eternal life. In the story, they are trying to sacrifice a platinum-haired heroine named Valeria in a magical ritual to regenerate the white queen and make her young again. For some time, I have suspected something like this is going on with the Others: The have exactly one Corpse Queen (like an ant colony or the species in Aliens), who has required the sacrifice of babies for thousands of years, but who really needs the reborn magic of Dany to be sacrificed to her to rekindle some kind of fire in their species so she can become young again and start reproducing again properly for the first time in thousands of years. I think the first Azor Ahai failed--or made an unholy alliance with the Others (like Crastor)--and sacrificed another magically powerful woman like Dany, Nissa Nissa, long ago, which has allowed the Corpse Queen and her Others to survive for these thousands of years. I think the Prince Who Was Promised is a trick, a prophecy implanted by the Corpse Queen herself, like the stories of Azor Ahai: They want Jon Snow, as the Prince Who Was Promised to Them, to capture Daenerys and sacrifice her to them. In my view, it's the opposite of the original human myths of humans stealing fire from the Gods in many cultures. Here, the Others are ancient beings who lost their fire, the Old Gods, and they essentially want to steal fire back from human beings and take the planet back from them. Eventually, Jon Snow has to realize this is a trick or else listen to his heart. Dany will be pregnant with his child, and he'll be told that he has to sacrifice her to save humanity and forge Lightbringer. Euron has some crazy future vision of what the Corpse Queen wants too and it's why he is in the process of sacrifcing his pregnant salt wife in the preview chapter, the Foresaken. He wants to make Dany his legal wife. He is trying to act out a trial run of the sacrifice the Corpse Queen needs of Queen Dany. In the books, contrary to the show, everything depends upon protecting Dany and her pregnant baby from the Others so they can't steal the human fire of passion and our ability to recreate. --Jeff H'ghar, A Theory of Ice & Fire
I need to read that Howard story. I only read the one on the Black Stone. Your theory reminded me of the Undying and how they tried to leech the life force out of Dany. Which is another example of fire being life, cold being death. An example I WISH I included in this video. I do agree that there is something tricky going on with the prophecy of Azor Ahai... and also the Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy. I know Martin said he wasn't a fan of Dune but he definitely "borrowed" some ideas from Herbert's book. He did an interview where he said Ned's death was basically Leto's death but he took it further. That can't be the only thing. I think Dany is going to use the Stallion prophecy with the Dothraki like Paul did with the Freemen. Basically, she will use the fundamentalist for her personal gain. She's very much like Paul Atreides (comparing them could be it's own video). Whether or not she's really the Stallion will never be confirmed. It's just that she fits the criteria. There's also something going on with Melisandre and what she believes about Azor Ahai. Who/what told her it was Stannis? Why doesn't she know about Dany or the dragons? She's being manipulated, I think.
What!?!?!?! I had no idea Utuku was coming back with more vengeance and taking the field!!!!! I'm not quite that far yet. Still on Sioman's dumb son and the trek back to the cold mountain. Guess I need to shift focus lol❤️🔥 Oh, and I also have always rejected the whole ability of the Others' ability to pro create with humans. It's made explicity clear throught the text that their proximity to life freezes ot to death. ❤
I'm glad I didn't spoil anything for you then. It's getting so good. I can't wait for next month when the last book comes out. At least someone is finishing their fantasy series!
Is there a female Other? Mayhaps, but you may be right. I was hoping for a new perspective on the existing theory, but it's understandable you when with conventional theory. I think you're taking the theme too literally, but maybe I'm wrong. The theme of this "mother" figure is often repeated in several places in different forms. The Alyssa Arryn for example. The Giant's Lance and the ice spears Bran sees in his dream echo a revision of this mother of spears idea. The strongest argument I think you made was drawing a connection between the Unsullied and the Others. I think the classic interpretation of Crastor is misguided. Unreliable characters are given too much credit for potentially being right. There is a theme the Others more strongly echo from JRRT's work and it's actually Ungoliant. I fear your interpretation of it comes to close to plagiarism with respect to Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Your take away sounds too close to the inspiration.
im here for the memory sorrow and thorn comparisons!! its crazy how George straight up stole whole characters and storylines from that story. it only makes sense that some of his unexplored characters already fully exist in the story that's less popular.
Big thanks for the shoutout, on this subject I have a lot of thoughts but for the most part it’s rooted in the differences between them and dragons.
As Aemon says in AFFC, Septon Barth saw that dragons gender is as changeable as flame, tying into what you said about fire having connotations of motherhood - all dragons can be mothers.
Meanwhile, Others (the opposite of dragons) are sexless, neither male nor female, a ‘different kind of life’. There is the evidence that they are Craster’s sons, as well as their habit of collecting babies as shown in the myth of Nights King, but this is all folklore and speculation of a scared people, so we cannot say definitively that they are all male.
But in both of the above they play into the lust of a man to further their own goals, be it sending a corpse-like woman to intice the nights king, or allowing Craster to survive in the wilds and play out his strange daughter-wife thing, so if nothing else the Others are intelligent enough to understand the desires of men. If anything they actually have more in common with someone like Cersei who uses fear and sexuality to rule rather than outright force exhibited by most of the powerful men in the series.
They are described frequently as being human-like but not quite human, I see no reason to believe they’d exist within a strict gender binary when their direct opposite in universe doesn’t.
That said, the others are very heavily male-coded, so I think it is equally possible they’re literally all dudes, like how it was in the show.
I think this is a subversion of classical fantasy tropes of ice being feminine, with ‘ice queen’ characters being far more common than ‘ice kings’ (shoutout adventure time for also subverting this).
I've wondered about this subject a lot! I'm dying to know everything about the Others but the show runners decided non of the lore meant anything. Great video 🔥
22:26 kind off like the Ironborns with the rock/salt wives
Good point!
memory sorrow and thorn mentioned? HELL YEAH
What I really want to know now is why the Others accept sheep in place of sons when Craster doesn't have them to offer. What are they doing with the sheep? They don't need to eat.
I think he sacrifices animals just to prove he still a willing servant of the Others but he has no sons at the moment. It's a way of saying "Hey, Others! I'm still your bro. No sons right now. But here's a pig. Please don't kill me."
I think we all know why they need the sheep. Wink wink.
@@copyninja8756 I mean we don't know WHAT they do with the sons. Could be anything. And doubtful we'll ever find out since the series most likely will never be finished
@@KevinPendragon I guess I find it most surprising the others are okay with it instead of just killing HIM (he is a man after all) and his wives. It would be really interesting to know what they do with the sons that would make waiting a better trade off for them, and shows they have some kind of intelligence and concept of long term goals vs immediate satisfaction/doing something because it's just their nature (like a tidal wave)
They bang them.
It's been a longgg time Kevin😂😂😂😂😂
Editing this video almost made me quit youtube 😭
Thank you to the late great Roy Dotrice for the excellent readings!!
Wait, you mean I'm not going to get the voice tht makes everyone sound like either a little old man or a little old lady anymore? Damn. I'm gonna miss little old lady Dany. I'm not joking either. Over all this time, that's her voice to me now, and I'm going to miss it if we ever get another book.
The corpse queen could've been a "partially dead" human similar to cold hands.
Oh! You mentioned the Lady of Spears while compairing The Others and The Unsullied...it makes me wonder, who is The Other version of The Lady of Spears. Is it the woman that the 13th Lord Comander took for a wife, the Cropse Queen? If the Lady of Spears is the place where the Unsullied bring their manhood (thereby making them Unsullied and in a way being their creator), then the Corpse Queen is a good parallel as the woman who gave up her children to The Others.
Also, it's very interesting that you say that the Norns in the sequel to Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn are kidnapping human women as their concubines so that they have multiple wives! It reminds me of the Iron Born!
Great video! While I generally agree with you, I have a different spin. I think the Others are cold and vengeful now, but they are trying to steal the fire from humanity to regain the ability they lost to recreate, through the sacrifice of Dany. In other words, they want eactly what the Undying of Qarth wanted from Dany in the House of the Undying...
Besides Tad Williams, George R.R. Martin is also very heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard, and his last Conan story, 'Red Nails', featured an undying white queen who required the sacrifice of babies and children to maintain her eternal life. In the story, they are trying to sacrifice a platinum-haired heroine named Valeria in a magical ritual to regenerate the white queen and make her young again. For some time, I have suspected something like this is going on with the Others: The have exactly one Corpse Queen (like an ant colony or the species in Aliens), who has required the sacrifice of babies for thousands of years, but who really needs the reborn magic of Dany to be sacrificed to her to rekindle some kind of fire in their species so she can become young again and start reproducing again properly for the first time in thousands of years.
I think the first Azor Ahai failed--or made an unholy alliance with the Others (like Crastor)--and sacrificed another magically powerful woman like Dany, Nissa Nissa, long ago, which has allowed the Corpse Queen and her Others to survive for these thousands of years. I think the Prince Who Was Promised is a trick, a prophecy implanted by the Corpse Queen herself, like the stories of Azor Ahai: They want Jon Snow, as the Prince Who Was Promised to Them, to capture Daenerys and sacrifice her to them.
In my view, it's the opposite of the original human myths of humans stealing fire from the Gods in many cultures. Here, the Others are ancient beings who lost their fire, the Old Gods, and they essentially want to steal fire back from human beings and take the planet back from them. Eventually, Jon Snow has to realize this is a trick or else listen to his heart. Dany will be pregnant with his child, and he'll be told that he has to sacrifice her to save humanity and forge Lightbringer. Euron has some crazy future vision of what the Corpse Queen wants too and it's why he is in the process of sacrifcing his pregnant salt wife in the preview chapter, the Foresaken. He wants to make Dany his legal wife. He is trying to act out a trial run of the sacrifice the Corpse Queen needs of Queen Dany.
In the books, contrary to the show, everything depends upon protecting Dany and her pregnant baby from the Others so they can't steal the human fire of passion and our ability to recreate.
--Jeff H'ghar, A Theory of Ice & Fire
I need to read that Howard story. I only read the one on the Black Stone. Your theory reminded me of the Undying and how they tried to leech the life force out of Dany. Which is another example of fire being life, cold being death. An example I WISH I included in this video.
I do agree that there is something tricky going on with the prophecy of Azor Ahai... and also the Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy. I know Martin said he wasn't a fan of Dune but he definitely "borrowed" some ideas from Herbert's book. He did an interview where he said Ned's death was basically Leto's death but he took it further. That can't be the only thing.
I think Dany is going to use the Stallion prophecy with the Dothraki like Paul did with the Freemen. Basically, she will use the fundamentalist for her personal gain. She's very much like Paul Atreides (comparing them could be it's own video). Whether or not she's really the Stallion will never be confirmed. It's just that she fits the criteria. There's also something going on with Melisandre and what she believes about Azor Ahai. Who/what told her it was Stannis? Why doesn't she know about Dany or the dragons? She's being manipulated, I think.
'ey, where are the white walker women at?
What!?!?!?! I had no idea Utuku was coming back with more vengeance and taking the field!!!!! I'm not quite that far yet. Still on Sioman's dumb son and the trek back to the cold mountain. Guess I need to shift focus lol❤️🔥
Oh, and I also have always rejected the whole ability of the Others' ability to pro create with humans. It's made explicity clear throught the text that their proximity to life freezes ot to death. ❤
I'm glad I didn't spoil anything for you then. It's getting so good. I can't wait for next month when the last book comes out. At least someone is finishing their fantasy series!
@@KevinPendragon shade
@KevinPendragon 😬😆😭 No worries! So much happens in Osten Ard, you couldn't spoil it for me!
Good song for this video...Fire and Ice-Pat Benatar.
5:50 Kevin preemptively warns his fellow wokies to not go full woke 🤣
Is there a female Other? Mayhaps, but you may be right. I was hoping for a new perspective on the existing theory, but it's understandable you when with conventional theory. I think you're taking the theme too literally, but maybe I'm wrong.
The theme of this "mother" figure is often repeated in several places in different forms. The Alyssa Arryn for example. The Giant's Lance and the ice spears Bran sees in his dream echo a revision of this mother of spears idea.
The strongest argument I think you made was drawing a connection between the Unsullied and the Others. I think the classic interpretation of Crastor is misguided. Unreliable characters are given too much credit for potentially being right. There is a theme the Others more strongly echo from JRRT's work and it's actually Ungoliant. I fear your interpretation of it comes to close to plagiarism with respect to Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Your take away sounds too close to the inspiration.
im here for the memory sorrow and thorn comparisons!! its crazy how George straight up stole whole characters and storylines from that story. it only makes sense that some of his unexplored characters already fully exist in the story that's less popular.
There is a saying that goes "Good writers borrow. Great writers steal." Martin definitely followed that saying lol.