#not to mention that coldhands....... exists
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ludcake Ā· 2 years ago
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Few things loom over A Song of Ice and Fire quite like the Others - the pale, cold gods beyond the Wall, which first introduce us to the magic of Martin's world. Better theorycrafters (and writers) than me have gone at length about the thematic strengths of the Others, and how they contrast the coming struggle against the winter foretold by the Starks since Book 1 with the petty politics, intrigue and bitterness of the Southron courts, which see it better fit to war against each other than unite against the looming threat to, as they "hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins", as said by Old Nan in AGOT Bran IV.
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When we first meet the Others, in the very first chapter of the entire series, the very first thing we are told of is the cold and the dark - and, of course, the dead. Waymar, Gared and Will are already put to discomfort before the Others are even hinted at, though it is clear that the three rangers know of the tales of White Walkers. Gared and Will are veterans of the Night's Watch, but as soon as there are hints of the darkness and the cold, Will seems to judge Gared ready to kill Ser Waymar for denying them a fire - and while it is true that Gared had already lost both ears and a finger to frostbite, we are also told that it is warmer than usual in the Wall, enough that it is weeping, or melting.
Of course, as we all know, the wildlings the trio was sent to track have disappeared, seemingly turned to wights - and it is here that we first meet the Others, and find one of their rare and few descriptions, at a moment where they seem all too human, perhaps more than anywhere else in the series. The Others are often framed as, well, Other - we see little of them but as distant shadows, the cold gods spoken of by Craster, and Old Nan's tales (more on that later).
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Afterwards, of course, Ser Waymar and the Other engage in a duel, and notably, its companions do not engage; instead, they watch the fight, and approach only to deliver a coup de grace - and in what I believe to be one of the most interesting moments of the prologue, they speak, and seem to mock Ser Waymar.
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To me, this already provides a stark contrast to how the White Walkers were depicted in the show, which hints at an origin of them as men turned by the Children of the Forest as a weapon; though these warriors of frost seem cruel and dissimulated, they have a tongue, and communicate with each other, with distinct voices and both flair and personality. Interestingly enough, perhaps, the same conlanger who developed the Dothraki and High Valyrian tongues for the TV show supposedly began developing a tongue for the Others during the production of the show's pilot - though that idea was (unfortunately) dropped. The Others are a people, creatures of ice just as dragons are of fire, dwelling beyond where it is always winter - and they bear armor and swords of frost, speak a language of harsh ice and bring forward the cold wherever they come. Let us take a look at their other prominent appearance, in Sam the Slayer's great bout against the white shadow.
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These are the two times we face the Others directly - and they are both heralded by the looming cold, the rustling of the trees, the darkness and despair filling the men who see them; they bear pale crystal swords, seem to melt at contact with obsidian, are able fighters, fast and elegant, and glow and shimmer in the reflective ice of their armor, turning the color of their surroundings as it reflects upon them - and interestingly enough, both appearances are near sentinel trees, though they are common enough in the North for it not be particularly aberrant.
Every single other thing we know of the Others, however, comes from other sources; some more reliable, such as Mance Rayder and Tormund Giantsbane, who have personal experience with them, while others come from distant reports, passed down in the library at Castle Black or by Old Nan's tales. We are told of the Long Night and myths of the North by Maester Yandel, and Craster speaks of his cold gods sparsely, but if anyone, he's the one who'd know them best; and Melisandre, the Red Witch that follows King Stannis, speaks of them as shadows, servants of the Great Other - a god whose name must not be spoken.
What is interesting, then, is what is not shown in both these encounters; we see no great ice spiders, no weaving of spellcraft, no eternal hatred for all that lives. They commit no particularly great atrocity for evil's own sake - they create their army of the dead through the wights, but it may well be motivated by the pragmatism of an unending army, rather than an ultimate desire or appreciation for undeath over life, as they show little appreciation or care for the walking dead but as tools of warfare - and the Others don't feed their servants the flesh of human children, nor do they deal with the Children of the Forest. Much of what we are told of the Others, and who they are, comes from secondary information, legends passed down generation after generation by wet nurses and servants to babes low and highborn alike.
I must take a moment here to emphasize that I don't believe that this disproves what we are told of the Others; while indeed the information that is shown to us is sparse, a lot of what is told is not a stretch at all, and it'd be unlikely for it to be entirely disproved - all the more when the source of information are Wildlings such as Mance, Tormund or Ygritte, who have been dealing with the encroaching advance of the Others for years now and lived with that threat more than any Southron Maester. However, I do think that there is more to the Others than an omnicidal horde of ice demons - fitting though the idea of a climate change allegory may be, I am skeptical that the ultimate conclusion to A Song of Ice and Fire lies in a reenactment of the Battle of the Black Gate. As Martin famously said to Rolling Stone,
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Of course, this line has been endlessly repeated, parodied and quibbled over, but I do think it's a recurring theme throughout the series - the full interview goes at length on a lot of fascinating points that I believe shed a very bright light on a lot of what Martin believes and how he writes, and you can find it here. Even the matter of the "little baby orcs" is brought up in the idea of the righteousness of Joffrey's assassination, and I definitely think it's a motif that bears keeping in mind; the innocence of children, and the conflict between their significance as the continuation of a line and the innocence they represent, is something that's touched on with the Lannisters, the conflict at Castle Black regarding baby Aemon Steelsong, and it is something that I believe will be reflected down the line whenever Craster's sons reappear.
The orcs in Lord of the Rings function, in many ways, a not dissimilar purpose to what the Others and their wights are; a looming threat casting a long shadow over the realms of men, over which the petty disputes of politics and family are secondary to what may yet be the end of life as we know it. An army so incredible and mighty that it seems hopeless for the sentinels of civilization to defeat, which will require that humanity either "face them and fight them or defeat them, or work with them, but […] do so as earthmen", to quote the fat man himself from that same interview. From the same interview, he comments this regarding the Wall and the Night's Watch:
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This is, of course, a personal piece of meta, reflecting on my own approach to the themes; but to me, one of the most consistent pieces of relevance in George R R Martin's writing is his capacity for humanity, and to empathize and humanize people and characters which would not, in the traditional fantasy genre with which he plays, be humanized at all - that's at the crux of PoVs like Jaime or Cersei, or Jon's journey with the Wildlings, or even a character like Sansa. The human heart in conflict with itself is the fundamental reason to write, to tell a story - and if there is no conflict with itself, if there is no humanity to be had, there is no story, or character.
Of course, there are missteps in the process; his heavily misogynistic treatment of characters such as the Dead Ladies Club, or the orientalist nature of the characterization of Dorne and Essos are some of the most litigious pieces of his writing in terms of abstracting humanity away from parts of the setting. But ultimately, when we do explore these areas and these characters, we meet people like Arianne, and we're made to care for even the commonfolk of Essos moreso than the commonfolk of Westeros, I'd argue, through the point of view of Daenerys and her own struggle for liberation, which is later expanded to a wider cause.
The Others are Otherised by their very name, by their very nature; they're not human, they're one of the most explicitly supernatural things in the setting, they open the very first book with a sense of dread. And yet, dragons such as Viserion can be granted sympathy and characterisation; GRRM is not unfamiliar with dealing with non-human characters in his other works. And yet, as he compares the Wall to Hadrian's Wall, don't we know that what lies beyond - in the Lands of Always Winter, in Scotland - are people? People who wage warfare and who laugh and sing, and who love and are torn apart between duty and passion?
To me, there's an intense disconnect between a profoundly humanist story, by an author who is notably critical of the usage of orcs and similar threats in fantasy literature, and the idea of an all-encompassing, apocalyptic and manichean conflict in the Battle for the Dawn; it's a deeply myopic worldview, and it is, indeed... Well, Melisandre who calls for it!
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For what it's worth, I do not think that Stannis and Melisandre are characters to be taken entirely at face value - particularly when for a majority of ASoS, the word demon is used particularly to invoke *fire* - to invoke both wildfire, in the memories of the Blackwater, and to invoke R'hllor in Davos' perspective.
I'd continue on and talk a bit about my theories for the Others - the ideas of them as spirits, as creations of the Children of the Forest, as oathkeepers and Starks (I find the idea of them being oathkeepers is very interesting, and ties into some of Mance's story). Unfortunately, that'll have to be kept to another post, if I do write it, because I think the point of this one is very clear - to think of a Battle for the Dawn as the central point, to think of A Song of Ice and Fire as a story that serves to fundamentally legitimise the violence and warring against an enemy that is Otherised, seems to me to be missing the point. I sincerely hope that if The Winds of Winter comes out, we'll have a fresh insight into who, exactly, they are, but I've no doubt it'll be a more interesting explanation than "people you can murder without feeling guilt over it".
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daenystheedreamer Ā· 2 years ago
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Do u want to talk about cannibalism in asoiaf
i luuurve the way cannibalism is portrayed in asoiaf. it makes me a bit crazy.... the way stannis, a man shown to be the epitome of justice and law, kept men imprisoned just in case they ran out of food. wartime murder, rape, civilian casualties, etc are portrayed as bad but almost necessary/unstoppable symptoms of war, yet cannibalism is this one taboo they still keep.
it is DEEPLY linked to the old gods, it's this primal, ancient horror, next to/linked to guest right and kinslaying. bran eating jojenpaste/coldhands' shady game, the warg starks (inc. robb!) all probably eating people while skinchanging, arya maybe eating human at THOBAW.
i like the way its often class based. king's landing's poor are fed and fuelled by literally eating each other THAT is the true naked face of feudalism. while the red keep has a constant revolving door of huge feasts, arya is eating the brown of flea bottom.
i love the ouroboros of it all, the endless cycle. a lot of it is also linked to the riverlands! frey pies, nymeria, robb and greywind, vargo hoat, the historical mention of danelle lothston.
checking the AWOIAF page for cannibalism (which yes, exists), the amethyst empress myth is linked with it. i'm not much of a GEOTD theoriser but hmm much to consider, especially it's links to azor ahai and nissa nissa.
in summary i think its a great narrative device and metaphor. i think grrm uses it very well! i hope we get 6/6 on starklings eating people (skagosi are rumoured to eat people come on rickon just one finger eat one finger bro come on everyone else is doing it...)
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kuorena Ā· 3 years ago
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Ok, ive gotta hear the whole Coldhands=Danny Flint theory bc its been bouncing off the walls of my brain since i saw that art. Like, i LOVE Danny Flint and I’m obsessed w her and i wish she had more of a presence in the story. I want it to be true even if its just a ā€œwouldnt this be cool if it happenedā€ theory
Hey, love to see someone else loving Danny Flint that much!
So basically the whole theory is about how Danny Flint could have been the one who became Coldhands because it vaguely lines up with both the timeline and their stories as well as some of the things that were said about Coldhands (and also because it would be awesome):
The timeline parallel can be summed up quickly by him being described as having been "killed [...] long ago" by Leaf, which technically makes him too old to be any of the dead brothers of the nights watch that we met in the time the story took place, while at the same time there are very few historical night's watch members that we actually know anything about, Danny Flint being one of them.
The story part goes a little bit deeper; we know that Coldhands was once a brother of the night's watch, that he was killed by the wights, and that he was raised from the dead, presumably by the children of the forest - he also knows about the black gate under the Nightfort, wanders the lands beyond the wall alone with only his elk, and considers the night's watch men that him and Bran encounter foes. Danny Flint joined the night's watch disguised as a man and faced incredibly cruel consequences for it by her "brothers", who are implied to have murdered her as well, is well known as a legendary figure of songs for her bravery, and she served at the Nightfort, which her ghost is said to haunt until this day.
Now the connection here is really far fetched but there are definitely some interesting parallels that keep me up at night:
-Coldhands knowing about the black gate under the Nightfort even though no living man remembers, Danny Flints ghost haunting it still, and the gate being what connects the Nightfort to the world beyond. Maybe her ghost is still there, and now on the other side
-Danny Flint being an outsider in the brotherhood and trying to fit in standing in direct contrast to Coldhands staying on his own, now an outsider on the other side of the world, but maybe having found peace in his existence among the dead and inhuman, as opposed to the cruel side he saw of humanity
-Her ghost remembering what her brothers did to her and Coldhands seeing the ones he meets as his enemies, with the exception of Sam, whom he found protecting someone else who does not belong with the night's watch
-Coldhands having been killed by "them", whether "they" were the others, the wights, or even who they once were - we literally don't know
To be fair, there's not really proof that any of this is related at all, but there isn't really anything speaking against it either? And yes, it's definitely a theory falling in the "wouldn't it be cool if it happened" category, but literally it would be so cool like. imagine
(Also I should definitely mention that I'm not the one who came up with it and I'm not even sure if its an "official" or even well known theory, so most of this comes from what I read elsewhere, my own thoughts, or possibilities I talked about with friends but its such an intriguing theory nonetheless!)
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vivacissimx Ā· 3 years ago
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Arya talking to Hot Pie: That time I was Roose Bolton's cup bearer ... or Arya talking to Gendry: That time we met your sister at a brothel ... or so many things would make Jon ask wait, what? But since you mentioned Sam I wonder how she'll react to finding out he met Jaqen.
hmm I do wonder what Sam's level of involvement is going to be on the faceless men plot - if Jaqen is going to be revealed to him, to what end, etc. This is just a theory but the only thing Sam left out of his testimonial to Alleras was Bran's existence/the Black Gate/by extension any possible link to Bloodraven & Bran who are both extremely powerful greenseers.
The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.
-ASOS, Bran I
Sounds like a type of magic the FM would be interested in, right? Esp given their oldest enemy (dragons) are back in the world, even if it's in a very different context i.e. Dany is freeing slaves rather than making them.
I'm of the personal belief that whatever Jaqen's deal is (if he's gone rogue, if he's still on orders from the HoBaW, or if it's something to do with the dragons that brought him to the Citadel), it's going to tie into the greenseer/Northern magic part of the story, which is going to link Arya, Bran, & Jon back together. I hope it puts them back together on one side but I also suspect that Bran is going to continue his trend of unknowingly crossing magical lines (warging into another human, communicating through the heart trees, possible cannibalism with Coldhands' "pork"/whatever the COTF are feeding him) and the result of all that is going to be to the detriment of the human fight against the Others.
Sorry for the long answer, but this is something I've been thinking about for a while! It wouldn't surprise me if it does end up requiring Arya to re-build a bridge between Bran and Jon, relying in part on her knowledge of the FM.
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megashadowdragon Ā· 4 years ago
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coldhands identity is brave danny flint
Could Coldhands be Brave Danny Flint? It sounds crackpot, and very likely is, but the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. I've done a quick search, one or two people seem to have floated this before but it's never had much in-depth analysis. This is my first meta, so please be gentle and C&C welcome.
The Gender Agenda To start with, I'll start with the elephant in the room - Danny Flint was a girl, Coldhands is male. Or is he? Gilly, Meera, and Bran all refer to him as male, but they have no idea who he is, so would see Night's Watch clothes and assume. He wears a scarf over his face, and while they can see his eyes and that his face is pale, it took Bran's gang a decent amount of time to work out he was a walking corpse, so I'm not sure I trust them to figure out niceties like gender. Leaf's "They killed him long ago" is more of a problem - she's a colleague, she would probably know. My best defence is that maybe Children of the Forest don't do gender in the same way as humans? This feels like a reach, but we have had another magical species with sexual fluidity leading to trouble with pronouns in the series. Otherwise, Leaf tends to hang out in the cave, Coldhands can't get in, maybe they're just not that close. Finally, the main person to ask - Coldhands his or her self. The only other post I could see on reddit about this theory had someone respond with the quote "Once the heart has ceased to beat, a man's blood runs down into his extremities, where it thickens and congeals. His hands and feet swell up and turn as black as pudding. The rest of him becomes as white as milk", but I'd point out this is in third person and a generalization - "a man", not "me, Coldhands, the man".
Okay, now I've convinced everyone my theory is terrible, let's get into the meat of it.
Hands cold as stone This was what got me into this rabbit hole in the first place - House Flint's sigil is "A grey stone hand upon a white inverted pall on paly black and grey". A stone hand would be pretty cold, right? In point of fact, when we first met Coldhands, the final line of the chapter describes "fingers hard as stone." On top of that, the white and black background seems to fit the Night's Watch blacks, pale face, black hands, white snow, etc.
Who the hell else could it be? This has always been the weird thing about Coldhands for me. Honestly, there's a very good chance this is a non mystery mystery, he's a zombie Night's watch ranger riding an elk, do we really need a secret identity? However, "who is Coldhands?" is one of the most commonly asked questions in the fandom, so let's assume it's getting an answer. We know: a) night's watch member b) killed a long time ago, as reckoned by a 200 year old, c) not Benjen. There are essentially 3 historical periods where we know any specifics about the Night's Watch: 1) the long night/age of heroes, 2) Targaryen era, 3) recent history. If we work through these backwards, we can pretty much rule out the recent era for not meeting the criteria of "killed a long time ago". The Targaryen era didn't have much Night's Watch drama, a few kings sent to the wall at Aegon's conquest, Raymun Redbeard's invasion is wall related but the whole point of that story is that the Night's Watch failed to really get involved... the only strong contender from this period is a mysterious magical Targaryen bastard who went to the wall and went missing... but he's the other mysterious good zombie wandering around up north. The long night has a lot of Night's Watch focus, but it was 10,000 years ago. Allowing for this being in-universe exaggeration, it's still ~2,000 years ago, and if Coldhands were that old, I'm not sure he'd be in elk-riding mutineer-killing form, or at least not look passably human to Bran and co. This rules out specific timeline characters, which leaves more folkloric characters like Danny Flint, who isn't associated to any one point in time. There's a song, and she's treated as a well-known tale, which implies a fairly long time, but overall could be whenever. This works for any of the folkloric Night's Watch characters, but the Rat King is already otherwise occupied with a different cannibalistic pseudo immortality, leaving Mad Axe, who does have the massacring fellow brothers down pat, but doesn't feel thematically right to me. This section really grew in the writing, but TL;DR - assuming Coldhands is someone we've heard of before, no specific historical figures seem to match up chronologically, leaving figures from folk tales and songs, which there are only so many of.
Mutineer Massacre For a character we've all obsessed over so much, it's easy to forget how little we've seen of Coldhands. His role in the story has effectively been "transport Sam and Gilly to the wall, transport Bran and co to Bloodraven, massacre the Night's Watch mutineers". Hold up, one of those things is not like the others. During his quest to get Bran to Bloodraven, to awake the messiah and save the world, Coldhands takes a break and makes a detour to kill the Night's Watch Mutineers from Crasters. This is explicitly noted to be something they slow down for, when time is critical. Admittedly, it secures the party some delicious Long Pork when supplies are low, but even in aDwD it seems like there are other ways to get meat than to hunt humans, besides which he kills not one but five mutineers. He claims it is because the mutineers are following them, but Meera points out they've been circling for days - it seems Coldhands deliberately sought the mutineers out. The brutality of the kills also suggests more than utilitarian pragmatism - there are entrails slung through branches and severed heads! All of this to say, Coldhands is deliberately shown as both a member of the Night's Watch, and willing/going out of his way to punish Night's Watch brothers who break their vows and harm their fellow brothers, something Danny Flint might take personally. Basically, it's a classic exploitation movie with an elk-riding zombie as the wronged woman hunting down wrongdoers. Someone call Tarantino to direct this.
A True Night's Watch One of the big themes GRRM loves is the idea that outsiders to an institution can be the truest embodiment of that institution - Dunk and Brienne are the truest Knights, Davos is the truest lord, the Manderlys are the most loyal northerners. Coldhands already seems to tie into this - the Night's Watch are tireless defenders from the Others and their Wights, so ironically the staunchest ranger is undead as well. It would only emphasise this theme if this ultimate Night's Watch ranger was someone who was barred from entry, had to sneak in, and was murdered by their brothers for not belonging. There also seems to be a thematic tie in that Danny Flint had to essentially infiltrate the Night's Watch and keep her cover in hostile terrain, much like Coldhands in the Others controlled north.
Bonding over being murdered by your brothers Coldhands has so far been very much one of Bran's cast, but it's worth noting characters can switch storylines, and we have someone else in the North who can soon relate to being a back-from-the-dead Night's Watchman fighting the Others - I'm hardly the first to note the Coldhands/Jon parallels, but Coldhands being another character who was murdered by the Night's Watch due to their conservatism and hatred of outsiders would add another layer.
Miscellany A couple of quotes I found while researching for this: ā€œDid Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?ā€ ā€œNot as I recall. Who was he?ā€ (ADWD Jon XII) - Tormund and Jon talking, Tormund mistaking Danny Flint for a man, this feels like one of those throw-away lines GRRM likes to include to make a little double meaning once the truth is out, or just seeding the idea of mistaking Danny Flint for a man. ā€œThe ranger wore the black of the Night’s Watch, but what if he was not a man at all?" (ADWD Bran I) - again, I could see GRRM giggling as he typed that if this theory were true.
Conclusion Honestly, there is every chance this is absolute nonsense, and I've just lost it waiting for TWoW. I tend to lean towards Coldhands not having a big identity reveal, he's an undead ranger co-opted by Bloodraven and that's enough. However, if Coldhands is to have an identity reveal, I think Danny Flint deserves consideration: there aren't that many viable candidates, her story is emotionally intense enough and has been referred to often enough that a casual fan could be expected to go "oh!" instead of "...let me google that", and it would fit with existing themes of the story. The angle of Jon parallels even gives an opening for the reveal to be natural and facilitate character and thematic arcs, which is what I look for in a theory.
comment on reddit
Yeah, the Flint (of Flint's Finger) sigil literally being a Cold Hand is what sold me on this when I started looking into it. There's also some other intriguing textual stuff about it...
The weird thing about Danny Flint is that she is only mentioned three times in all of ASOIAF. Three! Bran recounts her tale in Bran IV, ASOS; Theon hears Wyman Manderly demand her song in The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD; and Jon discusses her tale with Tormund in Jon XII, ADWD.
This was kind of shocking to me. Danny Flint is a pretty recognizable name to, I’d figure, the majority of attentive readers. I thought she must have been mentioned before the third book, at least, but… nope. Her tale is first introduced to us in Bran IV, ASOS, the Nightfort chapter… Oh, what’s that? Wait, isn’t that… the very same Nightfort chapter where we first hear about Coldhands? (Well, no, actually, he appears at the end of Samwell III before that, but this is the first chapter where he is identified as Coldhands.) Chronologically, Sam meets Coldhands, Bran thinks about Danny Flint, and then Sam introduces Bran to Coldhands, in fairly quick succession.
So it seems GRRM came up with Danny Flint and Coldhands around the exact same time. Interesting. Danny Flint is then not mentioned again until ADWD, when the Coldhands mystery is developed further. Double interesting.
Also, the Bran chapter directly preceding the Nightfort chapter– our first introduction to Danny Flint– is the one where Meera tells him the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, another tale of a northern warrior woman dressing as a man and hiding her face in service of some greater goal. Stretch? Maybe.
And why would Coldhands' face be covered at all if there WASN'T some big reveal upcoming? What utility would that have? That scarf clearly seems like a setup for SOMETHING. He doesn't need it for warmth. He's likely hiding a face that would make him recognizable to Bran/Meera/Jojen (and the readers), but died long ago... the only way that reveal could work without a ton of laborious exposition is if he took off the scarf and it was obviously a 'female' face, making it obviously Danny. It also seems likely Coldhands will interact with at least Bran and Meera again, both of whom are somewhat connected to Danny Flint’s story– Bran via his love of stories and legends, and Meera via the breaking of gender roles. So there's thematic levels to it as well.
source www . reddit . com/r/asoiaf/comments/llwm8m/coldhands_identity_spoilers_extended/
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idkanythingblog-blog Ā· 8 years ago
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A Song of Ice and FIRE CONSUMES
In many instances where the description of fire consuming is used, it is in comparison to or compatible with the preservation qualities of ice.
Fire is often describes asĀ ā€œconsumingā€ whatever happens to be on fire in a given scene, and sometimes it is more pronounced than others, (especially if mentioned in the same few sentences as ice), but this passage from Arya VIII in A Storm of Swords with Beric and Thoros always stood out to me the most, just because Beric’s behavior is so alarming and he just comes out of nowhere and starts rambling like a madman.
"Fire consumes." Lord Beric stood behind them, and there was something in his voice that silenced Thoros at once. "It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing." "Beric. Sweet friend." The priest touched the lightning lord on the forearm. "What are you saying?"
"Nothing I have not said before. Six times, Thoros? Six times is too many." He turned away abruptly.
- Arya VIII, A Storm of Swords
Then when I read this line from Bran’s second chapter in ADWD, it made me think back to Beric. It also reminded me of the way that wights very clearly are destroyed by fire, as is evidenced by Sam and Jon at the very least. Anyway, all these instances are using fire’s properties of consumption to destroy the wights, not reanimate a corpse.Ā 
Meera nodded at the girl. "It was her who saved us, though. The torch...fire kills them." "Fire burns them. Fire is always hungry."
- Bran II, A Dance With Dragons
From Samwell III, A Storm of Swords:
Small Paul was big and powerful, but Sam still outweighed him, and the wights were clumsy, he had seen that on the Fist. The sudden shift sent Paul staggering back a step, and the living man and the dead one went crashing down together. The impact knocked one hand from Sam's throat, and he was able to suck in a quick breath of air before the icy black fingers returned. The taste of blood filled his mouth. He twisted his neck around, looking for his knife, and saw a dull orange glow. The fire! Only ember and ashes remained, but still...he could not breathe, or think...Sam wrenched himself sideways, pulling Paul with him...his arms flailed against the dirt floor, groping, reaching, scattering the ashes, until at last they found something hot...a chunk of charred wood, smouldering red and orange within the black...his fingers closed around it, and he smashed it into Paul's mouth, so hard he felt teeth shatter. Yet even so the wight's grip did not loosen. Sam's last thoughts were for the mother who had loved him and the father he had failed. The longhall was spinning around him when he saw the wisp of smoke rising from between Paul's broken teeth. Then the dead man's face burst into flame, and the hands were gone.
And of course the first instance, back in A Game of Thrones, Jon VIII:
Truly, the gods had heard Jon's prayer that night; the fire had caught in the dead man's clothing and consumed him as if his flesh were candle wax and his bones old dry wood. Jon had only to close his eyes to see the thing staggering across the solar, crashing against the furniture and flailing at the flames. It was the face that haunted him most; surrounded by a nimbus of fire, hair blazing like straw, the dead flesh melting away and sloughing off its skull to reveal the gleam of bone beneath.
Interesting he references the gods answering his prayers, as he is surely referencing his own gods, the old gods of the North, which apparently right now is mostly Bloodraven living as a tree, and in this scene he, communicating as a god, quorks "fire!" via Mormont's bird to remind Jon to act.
Davos knelt, and Stannis drew his longsword. Lightbringer, Melisandre had named it; the red sword of heroes, drawn from the fires where the seven gods were consumed.
- Davos IV, A Storm of Swords
R’hollor uses fire to combat the Great Other who is too evil to be named but is probably Bloodraven and/or Brandon Stark. But most of it is just glamours and tricks, such as the whole deal with Lightbringer. If it needed to draw strength from the SevenĀ ā€œfalseā€ gods to make the sword truly Lightbringer, then it would probably have all the properties of Lightbringer - you know, the fact that it is actually HOT like fire instead of just bright like the sun (which is noted by Maester Aemon, and passed along to Jon Snow via a passage in The Jade Compendium). Speaking of Aemon saying interesting things...
Aemon chuckled softly. "Or I am an old man, feverish and dying." He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. "I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves.
- Samwell III, A Feast for Crows
The ā€œfireā€ he is referring to here is simply his fever which he got from getting pneumonia while sitting out on the deck of the ship en route to Braavos in a downpour (and then being over 100 years old). The fever is consuming him and killing him quickly, although this is also as he is learning from first hand witnesses about Daenerys’s dragons and confirming, in his mind, that Dany is the Prince That Was Promised - you know, the guy that Stannis supposedly is. Back in the day, Aemon and his uh...great grandnephew?...Rhaegar Targaryen thought TPTWP was Rhaegar, then changed their minds to Rhaegar’s son Aegon, then Aemon remembers that dragons do not have gender, so Dany can be THE Prince that was promised, despite being a princess queen.
Back to R’hollor and the use of fire - in regards to Beric and Thoros and LS, this ability to bring people back to life with some sort of flaming kiss seems to be only around that particular flame passed from Thoros to Beric (six times) then from Beric to LS once. That is unique to R’hollorism and their fire obsession. Their literal bloodlust for fire is usually used to kill, so that they can have more fire to scare off the darkness. Burning people alive is common sacrifice, and despite the fact that it is basically confirmed Melisandre set Varamyr Eagleskin on fire from a great distance, just HOW she did it is never explained, except for Melisandre’s elusive comment about R’hollor empowering her.Ā 
Mostly this passage stuck out because it not just emphasized the outstanding pain of burning alive, but it’s in direct comparison to freezing to death. From A Dance With Dragon’s Prologue:
Varamyr Sixskins would know the truth of that soon enough. He could taste his true death in the smoke that hung acrid in the air, feel it in the heat beneath his fingers when he slipped a hand under his clothes to touch his wound. The chill was in him too, though, deep down in his bones. This time it would be cold that killed him. His last death had been by fire. I burned. At first, in his confusion, he thought some archer on the Wall had pierced him with a flaming arrow...but the fire had been inside him, consuming him...
- Prologue, A Dance With Dragons. I wonder if she can make human spontaneously burst into flames from within and if she can, she probably wouldn’t prefer that way because it does not involve the big ceremony, or something. I don’t know. Anyway, we know Stark = ice and Targaryen = fire and we know that R + L = J so we know that Jon has to be some part of the answer to this balance between the jealous, greedy pyromaniac R’hollor and his supposed nemesis, the Great Other, and whatever role theseĀ ā€œgodsā€ have in the existence of the Others, who are immune to fire but NOT immune toĀ ā€œfrozen fireā€ aka dragonglass/obsidian.Ā 
I just had to double check that was actually said in the text, and it was, in Samwell V from A Storm of Swords:
ā€œDragonglass.ā€ The red woman's laugh was music. ā€œFrozen fire, in the tongue of old Valyria. Small wonder it is anathema to these cold children of the Other.ā€
So I guess R + L = dragonglass.Ā 
As cold winds hammered the city, King Aerys II turned to his pyromancers, charging them to drive the winter off with their magics[...]With the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands. Not ten leagues from Harrenhal, Rhaegar fell upon Lyanna Stark of Winterfell, and carried her off, lighting a fire that would consume his house and kin and all those he loved—and half the realm besides.
- The World of Ice and Fire
Perhaps, after Jon is killed at the end of ADWD, he is kept in an ice cell for a very long time. Long enough that his second life inside Ghost has changed the nature of his consciousness when somehow returned to his body, which we will assume will be resurrected by Melisandre. I’m guessing she won’t go the kiss of fire route like Thoros did, because that doesn’t appear to bring them back fully. It could be that her knowledge that he is a warg is what will enable her to do whatever necessary to bring him back to life the ā€œrightā€ way?
Coldhands is essentially a wight controlled by Bloodraven, not an Other in control of Bloodraven or anyone else, because the Others look so spectacularly different from the corpses they can reanimate. They don’t have black hands of a dead body, they have like, beautiful icy armor and super awesome weapons. Although the language they speak (referenced in the Prologue of A Game of Thrones) is the same unknown language that Coldhands speaks before slaying the elk.
Compare from Bran’s POV in ADWD:
It had been twelve days since the elk had collapsed for the third and final time, since Coldhands had knelt beside it in the snowbank and murmured a blessing in some strange tongue as he slit its throat.
To the Prologue of AGOT:
The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking.
When Bran later hears the ā€œChildren of the Forestā€/The Singers speaking in their language, the True Tongue, the one that ravens also speak, I don’t recall if he makes any connection to the words spoken by Coldhands. I don’t think so. Language aside, the ice-blue eyes seem to be the only thing they have in common with the wights, I think.
After much pondering about nothing, I suppose the question I am left with, for some reason, is: if dragons areĀ ā€œfire made fleshā€, then are the OthersĀ ā€œice made fleshā€? No, that’s not the question. Did any of this rambling spark any interest for anyone?
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