The Origins and Motives of the Others
The reveal of Hodor’s origin and his subsequent death have been the big moment focused on in last week’s episode. It’s a previous vision of Bran’s that has even greater implications. We find out the Children of the Forest used their own magic to convert some of the First Men or greenseers into what we know as the Others. The books foreshadowed this discovery brilliantly. To see the full break down, check out this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4klqi7/spoilers_extended_the_books_already_told_us_who/
My favorite is when Sam is being mocked by the Night’s Watch for his claim about killing a White Walker, and one brother says “Are you sure you stabbed an Other, and not some child’s snow knight?” George Martin is able to throw these in so well.
Now, this revelation gives us a whole new look at what the motives of the Others could be, and their origins.
The Children and the First Men
The Children of the Forest are the first known people of Westeros, along with the giants until the First Men came from Essos. They came with swords and armor, and proceeded to cut down many of the trees in Westeros in order to build their new homes. This led to a war between the Children and the First Men. The Children were smaller, but they had magic and we now know that some of what they did was turn men into the Others, going along with the “turning trees into soldiers” line from the books.
Eventually they fought to a standstill and they came to a truce. This pact lasted for thousands of years until The Long Night occurred, where the Others supposedly came down from the Land of Always Winter far in the north. The alliance between the two were able to beat back the Others and Bran the Builder built the wall from ice and magic, and the Night’s Watch was formed. Eventually the Children faded away from the world, and were all but gone by the time the Andals had invaded thousands of years later.
The Motives of the Others
We still are unsure of the motives of the Others so far. We know they were created in response to the First Men, but that they must not have been enough to win. There seems to be a missing link in the story. The Others were incredibly powerful that only dragonglass could kill them, and that wasn’t discovered until the Long Night. What we can assume is that at some point the Others, whether as a contingent or just one, left the Children to go further North.
One idea is that the first incarnation of the Others were not nearly as powerful as they appear to be now. They were simple soldiers for the Children to combat First Men that could be defeated through conventional means. It’s either this, or what we know isn’t the actual truth of what happened. We’ll assume it’s the former.
The Others at some point leave the Children and First Men after their peace, only to come back thousands of years later. But why?
They have a prime directive since creation, destroying the First Men — If the Others were not independent being, but controlled by the Children, they could have come back because they sensed the Children were slowly falling away from the world and this was the defense mechanism. With their willingness to kill the few Children left in the recent episode makes this unlikely. The other potential is that they are able to see through the weirwood trees that are in the North and places like Winterfell and saw an opening for them to finish what they started.
They are seeking vengeance for being tools in a war not of their choice — The Others left, gained some sort of increased power from being in the Land of Always Winter and came back to gain vengeance for being tools of war and then cast out when they were no longer needed. This would be consistent with what they are doing now as they now see a better opportunity to gain this vengeance. George Martin has said that the Others would not be such a black and white type of evil, and this could give a justifiable motive.
The old conflict has no relevance to their motives today — This is another potential theory. The Night’s King didn’t come about until long after the Long Night happened. He was the result of a Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch being seduced by a female Other, one that we haven’t seen at all in the current time period. He was only expelled after the combined efforts of the Starks and Wildlings. We are unsure if this is a different Night’s King or the same one, but it’s possible his motives relate to that conflict.
The Others are one of the most complex and interesting aspects of Game of Thrones. They are a pivotal part of the history of Westeros and are considered the ‘big bad’ of the series. As we’ve seen, there’s never a simple explanation and their motives are probably more complex than just the typical wanting to kill everyone. The revelation of their creation only gives us more questions than answers. The only person that seems capable of discovering what’s going on seems to be Bran, who’s in a bit of a predicament.
