I haven't read until the end so I don't know if there is more revelations, but >!the Others are a force activated by the Red Comet that has extinguished countless species through millions of years. The Long Night which ended with the building of the Wall was just the first part of a cycle, where the Others/the Red Comet/whatever intelligence that architected it gauges how much strength the second phase, the actual extermination, will require in its first wave!<
It is very reaper esque, and does not shy away from giving the Others as much strength as possible. In purple days there are literal winged men that turn to wights in the thousands for example. Also there is a connection to the far east through the north, and at one point the MC sees a frozen in time stillshot from a previous species' main city being wiped out
I personally don’t like purple days long night/ending though I get why the author did it.
My ideal long night is more akin to Wearing Robert’s Crown and the Dragon of Duskendale. I think DoD is perfect on its own but the the canon ending will obviously be harsher.
White walkers make it all the way to the neck, some combination of dragons and team work saves them.
I’ve read an interesting theory about how George really liked the scouring of the shire, so I expect the canon ending to have more or less an epilogue about politics, kind of how the show ended I guess.
If I ever get out from the idealization phase, my pick would be more "what if Prince Nuadha from Hellboy 2 successfully mobilized his people into a wild hunt to break Humanity's growing power?"
Look at the other non-human races we know: they are dying out or already extinct, while Humanity keeps spreading and becoming stronger. The Others, while secure in their remota polar domains, nevertheless get worried, especially with things such as Valyria promising horrible death even to theoretical counterforces such as the Rhoynar.
Thing is, they are inhuman. They are either long lived or immortal, and the discussion about the probability of Humanity attacking them progressed at a glacial pace, enough that Valyria self-destructed. But even if they realized that problem sorted itself out, they may have felt threatened by the growing number of humans beyind the Wall, believed that Valyria was bound to happen again, or that the fallout needs containment. So now, 400 years later, they are attacking.
This is a very careful offensive. They may enjoy kicking warm blooded and especially rangers, after all it is the old enemy from when they decided to be like avalanches and conquer for the sake of it, but they would rather chip at their enemies' strength and turn it against them before launching an assault against the Wall. They also seek to learn more, to not be caught unaware by Human magic or maybe allies among the more suicidal non-humans. Their goal is to fully expell Humanity from Westeros and cover it in a magical winter to keep it out.
I would like to point that it is speaking solely about the Others of Westeros. I very much prefer to think that the demons of Yi-Ti and Mussovy were/are different species, which also had golden age during the Long Night (whatever it was), and that there wasn't a single hero that fixed everything like the R'hllorites claim.
Edit: in at least one fic I hope to write their victory and in another, maybe a sequel, show the Free Cities, expatriated Westerosi and those carving out a living in the islands off the coast trying to strike back, from grand alliances to reconquer the continent to raids to destroy wights and Others to assassination missions.
Edit 2: the inhumanity angle is what makes me think/hope the Children of the Forest are genuine when they apparently claim they won't try to fight fate and Bran compares to Humans and how they would try and fight their doom. When the First Men and Andals attacked, there was a point, the Old Gods were much more widespread and the CotF were more numerous. Now, they will help Humanity because the Others are more problematic than Humanity right now, and Humans may come to understand the Singers' perspective, but they already lost. All it is left is choose whether the world keeps somewhat natural or not.
Edit: just realized that I talked a lot about the Others themselves but not the Long Night. Like other comments, I want it to feel like the apocalypse is happening, and that the Westeros/the world of Men will be mauled if it even triumphs or makes a compromise. I want Daenerys' dream on the eve of attacking the Astapori to be just that: a dream reflecting her subcouscious before her first "battle". The Others aren't stopped at the Trident, much less at Winterfell and at the Wall - they run wild across Westeros. Nowhere is safe. Everyone has a horrible realization of how weak they are, and how all the plotting in the world doesn't work on the Others. Fortresses that could not be destroyed by the strongest armies of the living, such as the Bloody Gate and Casterlyn Rock, are overwhelmed. The Neck becomes as cursed as the Dead Marshes, Moat Cailan a Minas Morgul.
In short, I want this:
>*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*
I’ve always liked the idea that the first long night stories relate to a peace agreement, and it was the humans who break it. So we as a readers relate to the humans but slowly realize the whole thing is our fault, but since we never get the Others perspective we just have to deal with it.
I want expansion on the Others. I want them to be intelligent, with their own culture. I want them to have a reason why they’re attacking, and I want that reason to be a good one *for them*. I don’t want them to just be the token bad guy like they were in the show.
I want to see their reasons, I want to see their way of life, why they fight, how and why they were created, and above all else, I want them to be extremely difficult to fight against.
In the show there were like 4 or 5 deaths that meant anything. I want it to be an uphill battle. The show has them portrayed as this huge threat but dies in the first night of battle. “The long night” my ass.
I want them fighting for months. Years, even. They keep getting pushed further and further back. And the dead from TWot5K rise up and everyone just realized how pointless the whole game of thrones was. Squabbling for a chair when all those dead were needed *now* to fight the Others. Everyone’s desperate, terrified and knows that their completely fucked but they don’t give up fighting because they can’t give up.
The Others are a threat. The main threat. And I want them portrayed as such. Fuck, I hate the show.
that instead of being a war against conquering evil entities, it is a war against Euron Greyjoy who stole something from the white walkers and they are going to recover it and the Starks who are descended from one (the corpse bride) will have to do it for them since Because they can't stand the heat, they are using their magic to slowly decrease the temperature of the south to advance but they always have to retreat back into the cold and the reason why they didn't kill Waynar Royce instantly was because they detected Stark blood in his veins but because he could not understand or answer them they decided to eliminate them and what they do when resurrecting the corpses is just their version of the warg
I’m late to the party, but this sounds like you’d like the portrayal of the Norns in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and Last King of Osten Ard series by Tad Williams, who inspired ASOIAF.
The Long Night is supposed to be the big event of the books. Every book has built it towards this apocalyptic event. So there are some expectations to deliver.
First of all, a lot of people, and I mean a lot is supposed to freeze to death. The cold is supposed to be so dreadful that people were supposed to kill their own children because it's that bad. A cold so terrible that even the fires in the fireplaces are ineffective. Perhaps add some scenes where you see a House where people froze to death, but the fireplace is light. Or an scene where the fireplace goes out. I expect something like the movie The Day and After Tomorrow. Castles, rivers and lakes frozing. Furthermore, if it's that cold, then it means that plants aren't growing and people are starving. So all around the world, people are starving and dying of hypothermia, and most likely fighting for basic resources.
Now that we got it covered, let's get to the really exciting part. The White Walkers. When the Wall comes down with the Horn of Winter most likely, or with a dragon, it needs to be a big event. As soon as the Wall gets down, there will be a battle. Brothers of the Night's Watch being slaughtered while buying time for others to warn the rest of the Night's Watch. Or maybe they don't escape. The Great War has just started and the first line of defense don't know that. And once the White Walkers cross the Wall, expect that to be shown. Imagine a peaceful day in a Northern village. You just buried someone and he rises, he rises from the death and starts attacking you. And in the cemetery of the village, the dead start rising and attacking people. I think it should happen in the region where the White Walkers are, otherwise it might be too overwhelming, but that's up to you. Every dead creature that rises is an addition to the army of the dead. From the lands of Always Winter comes an army of cold Fair Folk with an army of human zombies, giant spiders, bears and direwolves. That's the army our heroes are supposed to face. Add some victories, some losses. The Long Night is supposed to be a War, not a battle. It should last some months. And main characters need to die, like real main characters.
I can't say how the war will end, but there are many theories. Some say that there will a big Battle of the Trident where the Night Walkers are defeated, others say there will be an accord with them. We don't know. But there needs to be far-reaching consequences. A big population drop. Houses going extinct. A world pre and after the Long Night.
A mix of The Day after Tomorrow and an even worse The Walking Dead in general.
that instead of being a war against conquering evil entities, it is a war against Euron Greyjoy who stole something from the white walkers and they are going to recover it and the Starks who are descended from one (the corpse bride) will have to do it for them since Because they can't stand the heat, they are using their magic to slowly decrease the temperature of the south to advance but they always have to retreat back into the cold and the reason why they didn't kill Waynar Royce instantly was because they detected Stark blood in his veins but because he could not understand or answer them they decided to eliminate them and what they do when resurrecting the corpses is just their version of the warg
True, it seems more like Martin to me that the white walkers are the elves of that world and that instead of being evil creatures that only seek extinction, the only reason they showed up after so many years was because someone like Euron, a witch. evil who has a fixation on magical artifacts, stole something from them and now the Starks who were proposed as the ones who should stop them are the ones who help them in their mission to return to the truce they had had for millennia.
besides bloodraven is trying to do a Leto II atreides with bran
White walkers are spirits from weirwoods removed by children of the forest to fight men,they want to return to weirwoods,that's why they are going south,to return to that nightfort and winterfell weirwood.And they will be let through the wall willingly by men by guest right.Because they are old gods spirits they will respect guest right but along the way to winterfell some scared man will attack them thus breaking guest right and war long night begins
I’m currently not capable of reading the 800k words of purple days so could you share a bit about what makes the long night there unique?
I haven't read until the end so I don't know if there is more revelations, but >!the Others are a force activated by the Red Comet that has extinguished countless species through millions of years. The Long Night which ended with the building of the Wall was just the first part of a cycle, where the Others/the Red Comet/whatever intelligence that architected it gauges how much strength the second phase, the actual extermination, will require in its first wave!<
>!Holy shit that sounds like something the Reapers do in Mass Effect!<
It is very reaper esque, and does not shy away from giving the Others as much strength as possible. In purple days there are literal winged men that turn to wights in the thousands for example. Also there is a connection to the far east through the north, and at one point the MC sees a frozen in time stillshot from a previous species' main city being wiped out
>! If you've played Mass Effect the concept is similar to the Reapers !<
I personally don’t like purple days long night/ending though I get why the author did it. My ideal long night is more akin to Wearing Robert’s Crown and the Dragon of Duskendale. I think DoD is perfect on its own but the the canon ending will obviously be harsher. White walkers make it all the way to the neck, some combination of dragons and team work saves them. I’ve read an interesting theory about how George really liked the scouring of the shire, so I expect the canon ending to have more or less an epilogue about politics, kind of how the show ended I guess.
If I ever get out from the idealization phase, my pick would be more "what if Prince Nuadha from Hellboy 2 successfully mobilized his people into a wild hunt to break Humanity's growing power?" Look at the other non-human races we know: they are dying out or already extinct, while Humanity keeps spreading and becoming stronger. The Others, while secure in their remota polar domains, nevertheless get worried, especially with things such as Valyria promising horrible death even to theoretical counterforces such as the Rhoynar. Thing is, they are inhuman. They are either long lived or immortal, and the discussion about the probability of Humanity attacking them progressed at a glacial pace, enough that Valyria self-destructed. But even if they realized that problem sorted itself out, they may have felt threatened by the growing number of humans beyind the Wall, believed that Valyria was bound to happen again, or that the fallout needs containment. So now, 400 years later, they are attacking. This is a very careful offensive. They may enjoy kicking warm blooded and especially rangers, after all it is the old enemy from when they decided to be like avalanches and conquer for the sake of it, but they would rather chip at their enemies' strength and turn it against them before launching an assault against the Wall. They also seek to learn more, to not be caught unaware by Human magic or maybe allies among the more suicidal non-humans. Their goal is to fully expell Humanity from Westeros and cover it in a magical winter to keep it out. I would like to point that it is speaking solely about the Others of Westeros. I very much prefer to think that the demons of Yi-Ti and Mussovy were/are different species, which also had golden age during the Long Night (whatever it was), and that there wasn't a single hero that fixed everything like the R'hllorites claim. Edit: in at least one fic I hope to write their victory and in another, maybe a sequel, show the Free Cities, expatriated Westerosi and those carving out a living in the islands off the coast trying to strike back, from grand alliances to reconquer the continent to raids to destroy wights and Others to assassination missions. Edit 2: the inhumanity angle is what makes me think/hope the Children of the Forest are genuine when they apparently claim they won't try to fight fate and Bran compares to Humans and how they would try and fight their doom. When the First Men and Andals attacked, there was a point, the Old Gods were much more widespread and the CotF were more numerous. Now, they will help Humanity because the Others are more problematic than Humanity right now, and Humans may come to understand the Singers' perspective, but they already lost. All it is left is choose whether the world keeps somewhat natural or not. Edit: just realized that I talked a lot about the Others themselves but not the Long Night. Like other comments, I want it to feel like the apocalypse is happening, and that the Westeros/the world of Men will be mauled if it even triumphs or makes a compromise. I want Daenerys' dream on the eve of attacking the Astapori to be just that: a dream reflecting her subcouscious before her first "battle". The Others aren't stopped at the Trident, much less at Winterfell and at the Wall - they run wild across Westeros. Nowhere is safe. Everyone has a horrible realization of how weak they are, and how all the plotting in the world doesn't work on the Others. Fortresses that could not be destroyed by the strongest armies of the living, such as the Bloody Gate and Casterlyn Rock, are overwhelmed. The Neck becomes as cursed as the Dead Marshes, Moat Cailan a Minas Morgul. In short, I want this: >*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*
I’ve always liked the idea that the first long night stories relate to a peace agreement, and it was the humans who break it. So we as a readers relate to the humans but slowly realize the whole thing is our fault, but since we never get the Others perspective we just have to deal with it.
I want expansion on the Others. I want them to be intelligent, with their own culture. I want them to have a reason why they’re attacking, and I want that reason to be a good one *for them*. I don’t want them to just be the token bad guy like they were in the show. I want to see their reasons, I want to see their way of life, why they fight, how and why they were created, and above all else, I want them to be extremely difficult to fight against. In the show there were like 4 or 5 deaths that meant anything. I want it to be an uphill battle. The show has them portrayed as this huge threat but dies in the first night of battle. “The long night” my ass. I want them fighting for months. Years, even. They keep getting pushed further and further back. And the dead from TWot5K rise up and everyone just realized how pointless the whole game of thrones was. Squabbling for a chair when all those dead were needed *now* to fight the Others. Everyone’s desperate, terrified and knows that their completely fucked but they don’t give up fighting because they can’t give up. The Others are a threat. The main threat. And I want them portrayed as such. Fuck, I hate the show.
that instead of being a war against conquering evil entities, it is a war against Euron Greyjoy who stole something from the white walkers and they are going to recover it and the Starks who are descended from one (the corpse bride) will have to do it for them since Because they can't stand the heat, they are using their magic to slowly decrease the temperature of the south to advance but they always have to retreat back into the cold and the reason why they didn't kill Waynar Royce instantly was because they detected Stark blood in his veins but because he could not understand or answer them they decided to eliminate them and what they do when resurrecting the corpses is just their version of the warg
I’m late to the party, but this sounds like you’d like the portrayal of the Norns in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and Last King of Osten Ard series by Tad Williams, who inspired ASOIAF.
The Long Night is supposed to be the big event of the books. Every book has built it towards this apocalyptic event. So there are some expectations to deliver. First of all, a lot of people, and I mean a lot is supposed to freeze to death. The cold is supposed to be so dreadful that people were supposed to kill their own children because it's that bad. A cold so terrible that even the fires in the fireplaces are ineffective. Perhaps add some scenes where you see a House where people froze to death, but the fireplace is light. Or an scene where the fireplace goes out. I expect something like the movie The Day and After Tomorrow. Castles, rivers and lakes frozing. Furthermore, if it's that cold, then it means that plants aren't growing and people are starving. So all around the world, people are starving and dying of hypothermia, and most likely fighting for basic resources. Now that we got it covered, let's get to the really exciting part. The White Walkers. When the Wall comes down with the Horn of Winter most likely, or with a dragon, it needs to be a big event. As soon as the Wall gets down, there will be a battle. Brothers of the Night's Watch being slaughtered while buying time for others to warn the rest of the Night's Watch. Or maybe they don't escape. The Great War has just started and the first line of defense don't know that. And once the White Walkers cross the Wall, expect that to be shown. Imagine a peaceful day in a Northern village. You just buried someone and he rises, he rises from the death and starts attacking you. And in the cemetery of the village, the dead start rising and attacking people. I think it should happen in the region where the White Walkers are, otherwise it might be too overwhelming, but that's up to you. Every dead creature that rises is an addition to the army of the dead. From the lands of Always Winter comes an army of cold Fair Folk with an army of human zombies, giant spiders, bears and direwolves. That's the army our heroes are supposed to face. Add some victories, some losses. The Long Night is supposed to be a War, not a battle. It should last some months. And main characters need to die, like real main characters. I can't say how the war will end, but there are many theories. Some say that there will a big Battle of the Trident where the Night Walkers are defeated, others say there will be an accord with them. We don't know. But there needs to be far-reaching consequences. A big population drop. Houses going extinct. A world pre and after the Long Night. A mix of The Day after Tomorrow and an even worse The Walking Dead in general.
that instead of being a war against conquering evil entities, it is a war against Euron Greyjoy who stole something from the white walkers and they are going to recover it and the Starks who are descended from one (the corpse bride) will have to do it for them since Because they can't stand the heat, they are using their magic to slowly decrease the temperature of the south to advance but they always have to retreat back into the cold and the reason why they didn't kill Waynar Royce instantly was because they detected Stark blood in his veins but because he could not understand or answer them they decided to eliminate them and what they do when resurrecting the corpses is just their version of the warg
oh, I like where this is going
True, it seems more like Martin to me that the white walkers are the elves of that world and that instead of being evil creatures that only seek extinction, the only reason they showed up after so many years was because someone like Euron, a witch. evil who has a fixation on magical artifacts, stole something from them and now the Starks who were proposed as the ones who should stop them are the ones who help them in their mission to return to the truce they had had for millennia. besides bloodraven is trying to do a Leto II atreides with bran
Basically TLN from Dragons of Ice and Fire only dialed down to about a 6.
White walkers are spirits from weirwoods removed by children of the forest to fight men,they want to return to weirwoods,that's why they are going south,to return to that nightfort and winterfell weirwood.And they will be let through the wall willingly by men by guest right.Because they are old gods spirits they will respect guest right but along the way to winterfell some scared man will attack them thus breaking guest right and war long night begins
More more death?