Why is the fandom so fascinated with the idea that the Others (White Walkers) are somehow good? Many of the characters in the series are clearly evil (Euron, Ramsay, and Gregor come to mind) so why do people have such a hard time accepting that the primary antagonists of the series are evil as well? I apologize if you have already answered this question before, but it’s something that has always perplexed me.
Yeah, I’ve been strugglin’ with this one for a while now. There’s zero indication in the books that we’re headed for a twist of this kind–even if we get the show’s reveal regarding the Others’ origins (which I have issues with, especially RE the timeline), that’s not the same thing as their intentions being misunderstood, let alone relatable or benevolent. A lot of the argument revolves around this line from GRRM:
“I mean the orc-like creatures who always do dress in black and…they’re really ugly and they’ve got facial deformities or something. You can tell that if somebody’s ugly, he must be evil…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, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys.’ ”
This quote, however, doesn’t suggest that there are not embodiments of evil in ASOIAF. It just suggests that it’s lazy and problematic to have your villains always look evil and ugly and your heroes always look heroic and attractive. That’s why Cersei is beautiful, why Qyburn looks friendly, and why the Others resemble not Tolkien’s orcs but his elves. On the flipside, it’s also why Yoren is ugly, smelly, and grumpy while still being the truest of Night’s Watchmen and why Mance is mild-mannered and utterly average-looking despite his reputation (which precedes him by two books) suggesting a larger-than-life badass. And yes indeed, regardless of what he says on the subject, GRRM certainly hasn’t shied away from creating unambiguously monstrous characters; the closest one gets to sympathizing with Gregor is that he has migraines, and Euron… honestly, the Crow’s Eye just ends that particular argument.
It’s whatcha got inside that counts (GRRM being the world’s biggest Beauty and the Beast fanboy), and despite the Others being beautiful on the outside, they are pure death on the inside, as both Old Nan and GRRM’s pitch letter make unmistakably clear. To grab another relevant quote from the author, this time describing the Others to an artist:
“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.”
So the appropriate reference point for the Others would be fairytales (and as much as Tolkien’s, Terry Pratchett’s Elves), which is why they steal children, kill livestock, toy with their human victims, and walk on the snow like Legolas. Or take this one:
“…and it is important that the individual books refer to the civil wars, but the series title reminds us constantly that the real issue lies in the North beyond the Wall. Stannis becomes one of the few characters fully to understand that, which is why in spite of everything he is a righteous man, and not just a version of Henry VII, Tiberius or Louis XI.”
And what does Stannis have to say about the role of the Others in the storyline?
“When the cold winds rise, we shall live or die together. It is time we made alliance against our common foe.”
The idea that a revelation is coming wherein humanity has misunderstood the Others’ intentions and that the latter are just trying to survive, responding to a pact being broken, or whatever else misunderstands the structure of the story. ASOIAF is not about people being bigoted against the Others and needing to recognize their commonality; that story’s in there, but it’s about the wildlings, not the Others. ASOIAF is about people having forgotten the Others. It’s not dehumanization, it’s mythology and the mists of time obscuring the horrible truth: the monsters in the children’s stories are real, and they’re back.
The argument goes that ending the story with a showdown with the Others (which, for the record, has been consistently set up throughout the series) would betray the anti-war message, but one of the key tenets of the anti-war message is that the war has made us fatally vulnerable to the Others. Take it from the man who’s going to let them in:
“Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days.”
That’s why it’s so important when Stannis makes the decision to turn his back on King’s Landing and go north to find “the foe I was born to fight.” That really loses its charge if the apocalyptic supernatural threat is not, in fact, an apocalyptic supernatural threat.
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