Post by SlyWren on Apr 30, 2016 20:10:02 GMT
The cotf reacted quite quickly to the First Men, and fought them. I think the Pact demonstrates that the cotf eventually got what they wanted from the First Men -- an end to the destruction of weirwoods.
But still, the eternal river - the oak is the acorn and the acorn is the oak - sense of time understood by the trees had no means of comprehending the Pact. The Pact would have been seen as both Oak and Acorn of the First Men's adaptation to Westeros, and that Acorn/Oak moment was at once identified with their axes and fire. Even though Men changed, and eventually adopted the Old Gods, their fiery ways were felt and integrated into the consciousness of the trees.
And the trees are right. History repeats itself.
In spite of the Pact, the Andals eventually came and burned more trees. Mel had Free Folk tossing branches into the flames.
The trees were right. Their miasma is man.
And this is where we might just have to agree to disagree until we get more info. Because all of that really seems like it can be explained by the children not being able to fight back properly/definitively until they got a human greenseer. Who then helped them raise humanoid creatures who would fight the men.
The children's souls go into the trees and birds. Humans? Well, we've got the Faith's ideas. And the Night Lands. Both models suggest that humans leave this world.
But the Starks are in a frozen hell reserved for them. If I'm right, they are sleeping. A broken natural order, perhaps making it possible to recall the dead back into the children's present world. Into the humans' present world. And thus--Others and wights.
Perhaps it's nature doing this. I do acknowledge this possibility. But so far. . . when weapons get made and fighters get sent, they aren't sent or made by nature. They just aren't.
The longer-lived cotf are at once suspicious creatures. But I think that is a bit of purposeful misleading by our author. The cotf are not so long lived as the trees. While cotf might take a longer-view look at the world than mankind, they are not themselves trees. Like mankind, they would likely prefer the realm to not be a petrified, frozen wasteland where every weirwood grove looks like Nagga's Ribs, or every weirwood root-nest looks like the Seastone Chair.
But the children are described by Bran as the ultimate helpers. They and the green men are supposed to solve everything when one is in ultimate danger. We get told that REALLY early on.
So, if there is a misdirect, wouldn't it be what we are told? Vs. what we see in spite of what we are told?
I agree re: the age of the trees: but they speak to the children. And the children inhabit them. Seems like if the trees are doing something, the children would bet their natural allies in the endeavor.
Yet, I disagree with that angle, and with two wonderful minds on the topic. Why? Well, I think folks who jump to this conclusion are missing a very important part of the story. The CotF/Shkeen are not the antagonists, their parasitic plants are. And unlike Song for Lya, we do not meet a blissful, happy race in BR's cave, ringing bells and filled with love. Instead, we are introduced to jaded fatalists in a cave of bones.
Exactly: the children are not evil. They are fighting for themselves (in my model) and for what they think is best for the land and everything left in it. Even if (hypothetically) they are trying to push humans towards reconnecting with nature by doing this, they are doing what they think is right.
Like Jon is doing what he thinks is right. And Dany. And Ned. And probably the Maesters. And the Faceless Men. And the Dothraki.
None are "evil." But that doesn't mean that they are not antagonists to those who oppose them/
Nope. The Self.
GRRM does not scapegoat other races for the ills that befall man. That would be too easy. And this is why I find it surprising that prestonjacobs and BC would go in such a direction. Perhaps they believe man truly is heroic. If so, I do not think GRRM shares that sentiment. And I think the Age of Heroes will prove to be otherwise. Instead of triumph over the Others, created by some vindictive monkey-demons, I think GRRM will disillusion us, and have us realize the Others are Selves. And, I think it will be demonstrated that the Others were created by Selves in the Dawn Age.
I like it! I just don't see it as a binary. Humans can still be fighting themselves in this model if the children produced the Others. The Watch and the wildlings created the war between themselves--fighting themselves and their own perceptions (which Ghost helps Jon get over when Jon sees, smells, and hears the wildlings as just humans--like all other humans).
Like the Lannisters are creating/inciting their own enemies--but the enemies still choose to fight.
So. . . I just can't see the concepts as innately opposed to each other: humans can still be highly contributing factors to the Others WHILE the children send them. No??
Here, I disagree. I do not think the cotf have the power to bring forth any dead spirits, let alone encase them in ice. Ice is the medium of the Others alone.
And the cotf camo can hardly be called armor, imo.
But the children DO have the capacity to live on in nature. Something the humans (other than Starks) seem to think they do. The Dothraki think Khals become stars, but that's above it all. The children become trees they can still talk to and interact with everyday.
Seems like the Others are taking that concept and weaponizing it against humans. NOT letting humans "move on" and instead bringing them back to fight other humans. Maybe.
As for the armor. . . I'm having a brain blank: have we see someone other than Sam stab an Other? In short, do they have "effective" armor to weapons other than dragon glass, or is their "Otherness" an innate protection?
Very much agree with both of your takes in this part.