The oh A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantasy series.
There are elements of other genres present as well.
Perhaps the most prominent is horror.
It starts right away with prologue, a chapter that could
probably work as a standalone short story.
In that prologue, we feel the fear building within Will until
it peaks when he sees the others.
It's not just the fear of death he's faced that before, though
it is clearly present. It's not like it's not
important, but it's the fear of something that should not be a
thing that shouldn't exist. This is what he's never seen
before, and Will grapples with that as he's frozen in place,
clinging to the tree. What he's seeing is outside his
reality that he cannot deny that it's happening.
In The Clash of Kings, we meet a man who claims to worship these
beings, though maybe worship isn't the right exact word.
He calls them by another name too, the cold God.
So worship the baby isn't worship others that aren't
actually others. Anyway, for this, he considered
himself a godly man. He says it a lot.
This despite his blatant practice of incest, which is
very much not godly in the eyes of most Northerners and most
others too. Really.
The old Gods don't really approve of incest, and the old
gods and the cold Gods are not the same though, so we'll get
into that. There can be no doubt that the
way he treats his wives slash daughters is an abomination both
to us and most people in the story in the world.
Other free folk don't seem to like him, though.
His shelter has saved the lives of many a Nights Watch Ranger,
which, to be fair, might be part of why other free folk don't
like him. Despite how horrible the man is,
he's an extremely unique individual with knowledge that
we have a great interest in thanks to the overlying
mysteries of the story. There's really no one else like
him. The revulsion we feel for him is
oddly matched by our curiosity, something that only an expert
writer like George R Martin can pull off.
Does he actually sacrifice to the others because he wants to?
Because he thinks he has to? Somewhere in between.
What happens to the children he leaves out in the stove for
them? Are they just dead?
Or is it like one of his wives says, that they become the
others themselves? Did he start this before?
Did he learn this from somebody? Where did this come from?
We haven't seen it from anyone else, so it's yet another big
question. The only other people we've
heard of treating the others as gods have lived in times far,
far gone, such as Knights King. I mean, that's quite a company
to be in. We've got a lot to talk about
today. We've got all that and more on
this episode of History of Westro's podcast, Hello and
welcome everybody. Time for a creepy, fun episode.
It's always neat to see how people react to a topic like
this. Crasser is undeniably gross, but
this topic was easily won the poll when we put it up against
some other. Ones there.
So gross doesn't mean uninteresting.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're totally right.
How you doing today, Sean? You got a I see you got a Star
Wars Futurama Simpsons mash up there.
Yeah, kind of. In a tribute to the new Futurama
season that came out. That's right.
How many times has it been cancelled and and brought back
now? It's technically just been
cancelled twice, but then like some of the times it was brought
back to like multiple movies, so like it seemed like multiple
more run like, but I think it's technically twice.
So OK, OK, that's interesting, but.
It seems like more it's it's another another thing of
semantics. What's worship versus something?
What's? Can't cancel versus discontinue
versus switch network indefinitely.
Paused. Yeah, or you know what's there.
Either way, it's there's an unusual run for any show to have
that is Futurama, but yeah, all three of us like it.
You know, you started off the intro with the idea that
fundamentally this story is fantasy.
Like if you had to categorize it as one thing, fantasy might be
it, right? But there's definitely other
elements to it. Political intrigue, you know,
drama. And as you said, horror.
Maybe the the next most after fantasy.
But I think mystery. I think mystery is right up
there with horror. That's a good one.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because there's a lot of like whodunits that we don't know the
answer to and. A lot of.
First book in particular, like starts as like being this miss,
this murder mystery that Ned is like trying to solve.
I think the first one more than anything, like sets up that it's
like about a mystery. And there's like lots of them.
There's all these other mysteries that aren't as front
and center, really, but still other ones like Danny dealing
with like who the Harpy is or not to mention who Ned's
investigating murder. So is Catlin.
Like Catlin starts like who tried to kill Bran and then
that's like who tried to kill John?
Who killed who did kill John? Aaron.
And then yeah. That's the point.
Often mystery and horror go hand in hand.
That's true. Once again included, it's even
at opening scene with What the hell are those things?
Setting up a mystery. Yeah, what do they want?
Crasser himself. We just talked about all the
questions that come up with him. You know, that's a great point.
Yeah, there's a strong case that it might actually supersede
horror in this series. I don't know how you would go
about quantifying that, but it's a strong point regardless.
Shout out to our friend Nina, She added a quite a lot of
notice for this one. She always adds solid thoughts
to our episodes. This one is is notable for even
more than usual. Considering it's like, that's
less surprising to me when it's like a certain historical topic
or something like that. But when it's crashed, I'm like,
oh OK, you know, yeah, she's the same kind of reaction.
Like this guy is creepy. But Yep, there's a lot to say.
There's a lot of analysis and and mystery.
And latest on Good Queen allie.tumblr.com That's of
course 1L. And Allie is a post on
responding to a question on what kind of rights would divorce
noble women have in Westeros? And several different
permutations on this, such as what about setting aside a wife
who's infertile? Or is it still responsibility
for the husband or the family, or what's?
How does it work? Basically, and though there
isn't a ton of detail in the books, you need to put together
what she can. That's pretty cool.
Check that out if you're so inclined.
This episode was voted on by patrons.
Like I said, they won more than half of the vote for four
different choices and next week we're on the road.
We'll have a older episode put up.
Some of y'all may not have seen it, so just keep an eye on your
feeds and then next. We're going to Chicago.
Y'all that's right, we are going to Chi Town.
Tommy Pappas, friend of the show.
I can't believe you're going to Chicago without having watched
The Bear the Bears. If this episode ends and you
want to stay immersed, we've got you covered with suggestions for
topics related to this one trivia question Who does Jon
Snow see sleep inside the hollow of a tree?
Answer at the end it's maybe this is what inspires him to go
in a cave with the grit. Now actually no, but it's kind
of like a cave. It's very small and made of wood
and it's not a where wood tree in case you're wondering, it's
just a tree, some large tree set up.
Let's talk about a little. There's a large person, huh?
Could be, could be. There's a fishing Ville.
We're going to start and end this episode with some
inspiration first, real world inspiration at the end.
Nina wrote a nice little piece on a parallel to George R
Martin's story Fever Dream, which is his, you know, vampire
Mississippi riverboat novel, which is a very good story that
I have been meaning to reread. There's a fishing village in
Northumberland that's England, if you've forgotten, called
Craster and Craster Kippers, which is smoke herring, are
known around the world the ones made there.
The village is not far from Dunston Bur Castle.
Now we've talked about Dunston Bur Castle in Mandley part one
because it's likely the inspiration for Dunston Berry
Castle. The people that held Dunston bur
had a similar story that the Mandalisted, where they were
forced to flee and they exiled themselves because of a
situation. And yeah, anyway, well, we go
into that in the Mandalay episode, so check that out.
But George has been there. And the Craster, like, if you're
walking, if you're at Craster Village and you're walking along
this Causeway, you'll get to Dunstan Burr in like a short
amount of time. It's visible from there.
So since George has been to Dunstanbury, it's a very good
chance he's heard of this Craster village.
The Craster family has held the village since the 11th century.
Whoa, right. I don't know if there's.
I don't know if they're incestuous.
I probably not. But hey, you know, they've been
there a while. What's more, Craster in
Anglo-Saxon means crows camp or crows earthwork.
How crazy is that? So that's almost certainly
something George borrowed from, because that's too much
coincidence. I think Craster has a strange
relationship with crows. Of course.
The Night's Watch. Crows, that is.
He hates them, yet he gives them shelter.
And his father was a Ranger. So there's some definite like
human pathos here that we'll talk about as well as a lot of
the other great topics that are associated with this first
mention. And we like to start with that
when we have a character especially or an obscure thing
because Crashers Keep has been so valuable to the Nights Watch
as a shelter, the Rangers have put up with quite a lot.
Knowing what kind of man he is makes lines like this one very
awkward quotes. Up ahead a hunting horn sounded
a quavering note. Half drowned me the constant
patter of the rain. Buckwell's horn, the Old Bear
announced. The gods are good.
Crash is still there. His Raven gave a single flap of
his big wings, croaked corn, and ruffled his feathers up again.
John had often heard the Black Brothers tell tales of Craster
and his keep. Now he would see it with his own
eyes. After seven empty villages, they
had all come to dread, finding crafters as dead and desolate as
the rest, but it seemed they would be spared that.
Perhaps the old bear will finally get some answers, he
thought. Anyway, we'll be out of the
rain. That's The Clash of Kings, John
Three. So you see what I mean about
that being awkward? They're like crafters still
there. And yes, it's because of the
shelter, but they have their empty villages.
Gave them shelter too. Why is he still there?
That's the part that's really awkward because he, as he
explains it, it's because he's right with the gods and that
involves doing all sorts of sacrifices and and other stuff.
So yeah, that's pretty awkward. A Game of Thrones ends with John
trying to desert, getting brought back by his friends and
then GR Mormont scolding him and pointing out that their war is
more important than Rob's. And and John is kind of struck
by that. Like, that's a good point, man.
And then he announces that they're going bong, bong the
wall and he's like, oh okay Dang, we are, we are going off
into adventure. I am going to be a Ranger.
Sort of, after all. It's not exactly what he
expected, though, is it? And here they are, three
chapters into that great ranging.
That's where that quote falls, Nina says.
Isn't that quote immediately ominous and menacing?
In a world of death and desolation, crash or diet only
survives but doesn't want to leave.
He's like, yeah, I'm cool here, This is like, this is awful
landscape. Desolate, cold, freezing.
Yeah, I'm cool. Mormon treats it as a good sign.
But as I've said and it's we should be scared of the fact
that he's still there. It should be a problem.
Like why is he able to remain? What does he know that they
don't? What is he doing right And well
they don't maybe don't fully grasp.
Maybe they don't want to know. Maybe they haven't admitted it
to themselves. But John's people like John.
Well, John's has that combination of naivete and
strong sense of justice built into him from Ned, and it's
something you see in lot in Aria in particular, a lot of the
Starks, really. But I think those two really
stand out the most of just being really stubborn in their ways
about what's good and isn't. And Ned Stark was kind of like
that too, Nina says as well. Anyone who's watched a horror
movie knows that that creepy isolated cabin in the woods
never good things like this is This is a horror trope.
Now he plays with it Jor, as he always does, but this part of it
is pretty straightforward. Like just the abandoned.
Everything else is abandoned, but one creepy dude is there.
Well, I just watched. Here I would say, rather than
play with it, he's taking advantage of it.
Yeah, he's leaning into it, yeah.
Playing off what people are going to assume.
Like you're right to assume that this is horrific.
Here's how a veteran Ranger, now Thorn Smallwood is this next
quote here. He is not a newbie.
He is no Jon Snow. He's been in the Watch for a
long time. One small Woods 4, the Craster
was a friend to the Watch, despite his unsavory reputation.
Man's half mad, I won't deny it, he told the Old bear.
But you'd be the same if you'd spent your life in this crisp
wood. Even so, he's never turned a
Ranger away from his fire, nor did he love man's Raider.
Give us good counsel. So long as he gives us a hot
meal and a chance to dry our clothes, I'll be happy
everyone's talking about how dry it is.
That's the It's rain. Yeah.
I mean, I believe it. It's freezing, probably.
That's got to be awful. What to point out it it is, you
know, in full context. Yeah.
So long as he gives us a hot meal and a chance to dry our
clothes, I'll be happy. So as long as he does that,
anything else is fine. Sacrificing babies, incest.
Like, you know, maybe it hasn't been tested, but I wonder how
far it would be tested. Where it was Thorn, of what he
was doing? Well, it.
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, some of.
Yeah, I don't know. This some of this troubles me.
It'll be a theme throughout, I think, but in the same way that
some of the King's Guard. Have this sort of respect and
reputation for their honor, but they stand by and watch kings do
awful things. Like how much honor do they
really have? Is sometimes the Knights watch
is a little questionable. My question here is, do we see
where what what Thorin does in the drama at Crashers He's
killed before that. Before that, OK, I was curious.
Killed at the fist of the first man.
All right. Yeah.
He replaces Benjin, his first Ranger, and goes on one ranging.
I guess maybe you'd go on. One before so we don't see him
face that dilemma. No, he he's the one that he's
killed by the undead bear. He like, almost takes his head
off and then it takes his head off.
It's because taking its head off doesn't accomplish all that
much. But it does in Thorin's case.
Yeah, so that's actually probably where they got the idea
to do the bear scene and the TV show, even though it's very
different, but it does end up killing someone.
It does end up killing Thorros in the show Dies, like of his
wounds because of that bear attack.
Yeah, he dies day or two later. Yeah, Thorros.
Thorin, Hey, they kept it closer than I realized, right?
Yeah, because Thorin's not even in the show.
Anyway, the show is not going to come up much today, but we will
mention it one or two other times because imagery and I
wanted to talk about the actor briefly.
Anyway, Nina says these words take on an extra sinister edge
when you read them second time around.
Like, when you hear it the first time, you don't yet know, Oh my
God, like, oh, as long as he just gives us, like, you don't
realize how far that, like Sean said, you don't realize how far
that's being pushed. Like, oh wow, so he's maybe he's
kind of a dirty guy. Maybe he's done a few bad
things. No, this guy's sacrificing his
sons to the others. This this isn't like basic
criminal behavior. This is something far worse.
And yeah, because he gives them shelter, that's that makes it
okay, not okay. But it means they have little
choice because, yes, shelter in this case, it's not like
convenience. It's not like, oh, we won't get
wet at night. It's the that's pointed out
multiple times that it's the difference between life and
death like that. If they'd been out in the
wilderness, they would have died.
If they hadn't gotten inside crash, they would have died.
The bar is pretty high for what you'll tolerate when death is
the alternative. I got to say, even if it's
extremely immoral, like some people would be like, I'd rather
die than tolerate this, but when you're actually put to the test,
you might not. And on some level I see that.
But also, maybe you'd rather prepare better.
Yeah, sure. Bring one more horse with extra
firewood something You guys, you have other options.
Like they didn't like. He's like, oh, Crasher has a
fire. Like you could have built your
own fire. I mean, you know, like you said.
I mean, yeah, like there are because like you said, there's
abandoned villages. All those other spots had empty
bubbles that could have stayed there, but.
That watch could have built their own outpost out there.
They travel out there often enough to need to stay at
Crashers over and over again. Build her own little Hut or
whatever. Maybe it went last.
Maybe Wildlands would take it, you know?
I mean, I could see all kinds of angles, but I got to run through
all those angles before I live with this insectuous guy, right?
I got to be sure about this, not just one guy, 1 Ranger told me.
It's cool, Okay. And that's what John does.
And he, I mean he refuses to sleep under caster's roof and
will freeze us to eat his food like John.
At least. Maybe if John was more tested.
Like if it was freezing, literally freezing outside, he
might not have, you know, I don't know.
I don't know what John would. We just don't know what John
would have done. But it it is hard to know what
you do. He might have accepted it that
night, so we didn't freeze and starve to death, and because it
comes back later. Exactly to exact justice, to
free the women or whatever, you know?
But clearly none of these other Rangers did.
Not including Benjamin, I suppose, and this other line
that Thorin Smallwood says. He says he'll give us good
counseling. Really interesting, like he does
tell them where Mans is, so that is partly true.
So that is a definitely something that the Nights Watch
got out of him. That was very valuable and
useful and accurate. Like he didn't lie about that,
but he did lie about other things as we'll see.
So it's a mixed bag in terms of what he's saying.
So I don't think there's some sort of reverse card being
played here. People seem to know what Craster
is, even though the readers are introduced with slowly and kind
of their John's perspective. He doesn't know until he learns,
but then he rhymes out. But yeah, these people have
known this. Even the old bear knew this
already. Here's another quote about him
from another Nights Watch source.
Darwin said Craster was a Kinslayer, liar, rapper and
Craven, and hinted that he trafficked with slavers and
demons and worse, the old Forester would add.
Slacking his wooden teeth. There's a cold smell to that
one. There is, yeah.
Dywin has the 5th cement, Fifth sense.
He can smell cry. I mean, no, he can smell the
others or death or whatever it is he's smelling.
It's not the only time it comes up.
And every time it seems to be accurate.
So something's up with Dywin and his fifth sense there.
He can smell things that other people can't, but he's never
attributed to a person before. I don't think Dywin's ever
attributed the cold smell to a human.
It's always been like the others are near or the whites are near.
And I'm pretty sure he's always been right.
We've never done a full deep dive on dive when I've always
kind of meant to. This maybe inspires it even
more. But yeah, so that's like, yeah,
the stink of the others is on him.
Not that he is 1. Not that he's got their
bloodlines isn't crazy like that.
Although I suppose that can't be dismissed.
There's no evidence for it either.
Dywins up right on the money here.
Nina says. Yeah.
Craster. Klint.
Kinslayer. Yes.
Liar. Yes.
Rapper. Yes.
Craven maybe. That one I'm not as sure about,
but I think you can make the case traffic with slavers and
demons probably. Well, definitely the demons and
the demons might be slavers. So pretty much all those things
are true. It sounds like an exaggeration
though. When you put all those things
together with the and the character even met.
It's like especially in this kind of story where George does
that sort of thing where he, you know, people spread rumors, the
rumors go through the telephone game and get exaggerated and a
lot of times like okay, it's not quite as intense as all that
this time. Yeah, yeah, that pretty much is.
What are some things that he's lied about?
Well, let's let's go through some of the examples.
Specifically, he's a kid Slayer because he's letting his own
babies out to die. That's pretty straightforward.
He's a liar because he said he's not seeing the others yet.
Later we'll go through evidence that proves he has.
Well, at least his his wives have.
Gilly has knew how to describe them and that's before she saw
them on page with Sam. And the other wives had
indicated they've seen him as well.
He's some of them, not all nineteen of them.
We didn't talk to all of them, or the Nights Watch didn't talk
to all of them. He probably lied about some
other things we'll get to as well.
And he is a rapper, no doubt. I mean his.
He rapes his wives, he's forced them, He marries them way young,
way young calls it a marriage. Nina does make the case.
He's a craving. He would rather sacrifice to the
others and save his own skin than risk resisting them.
Like fighting for the Knights watching like this.
Yeah, still, like I said, there's a case to be made that
he's the Craven. He.
I mean, he's not like a he's not a coward necessarily, but a
Craven like he does like stand up to people.
He's, you know, go outs and hunts.
He takes risks on his to his person.
So there's a sense of that. But yes, he's.
I think it's fair to say that someone, I think it's fair to
say that someone who is generally brave might find
something that is scary enough to be, you know, like a he
might. Again, I think it's debated
whether or not he's a Craven. Yeah.
So I'd say in the case of like morality and ethics, I'd say
he's a Craven. But in terms of like facing
physical danger, probably not. If you want to divide it that
way, your mileage may vary. And he does traffic with slavers
and demons, as we just said. Yeah, Nina makes pretty much the
same case as we do here. It's like, yeah, it's all very
straightforward. Y'all it's not.
It's not. This isn't rocket science here.
Joe's of craft since the Super Chad says craster Brendan Rivers
connection possibly, probably coming.
We have it in here. In fact, it's in this next
section, because this next section is called birth.
We're talking about Craster's background, which it comes up a
bit here, let's let's go quote. Craster's more your kind than
ours. His father was a crow who stole
a woman out of White Tree Village, but after he had her,
he flew back to his wall. She went to Castle Black once to
show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and
run her off. Craster's blood is black, and he
bears a heavy curse. That last line particular is
interesting, and that's a grit speaking, in case it wasn't
clear. All that, So yeah, all the she
went to the Castle Black. Yeah, White Tree is pretty close
to the wall they they passed through it on their way to
Crafters Keep. So we see the village where he's
from, where his mother was born or where she lived anyway.
And that makes the connection simple enough for sheer
proximity. We also know the various members
of the Knights watch not take the prescription against sex
very seriously. It's it's one of the laws that
they break routinely. Not all of them, of course, but
a lot of them. Maybe even the majority.
Perhaps. Probably the majority, I don't
know. And there's a continued sex
trade at Moles Town and of course you got stuff like this
going on as well with with Rangers hooking up with free
folk, willingly or otherwise. Anyone could have fathered,
crashed or, Nina said. It's not necessarily meant to be
important who it is. I think that's kind of, it's
meant to be kind of a faceless anybody.
I think that maybe it it makes the story a little better, makes
it fit a little better. But we are.
But we are going to entertain these other possibilities
because we don't know his blood is black is what she says
regret. That's because she's born of the
nights watch black blood. But also the hairy curse part.
That's basically the same things we were just saying Ken.
Slang incest Sacre like yeah, that's.
I think that's what she means. I don't know exactly.
She didn't elaborate exactly, but I think that's it.
So yeah, there is a blood Ravenous crafters theory out
there. It's been there for a long time.
There's really nothing to back it up other than it being
technically possible. In fact, think there's counter
evidence, like if it was someone famous like him that would be
hard to keep under wraps. It would have been known I
think. So I lean pretty heavily towards
a no on blood Raven, but that doesn't mean there isn't reason
to bring him up. Another subject here because,
well, we'll get to it in a minute.
I want to say I I lean towards no also, but I do think there is
an argument. I I think there is the fact that
there is so much mystery surrounding him.
Like we we started saying like. When did he start sacrificing
babies? How does he know he needs to do
it? Things like this.
Blood Raven is mysterious and in the know enough that he might
been part of setting that up. We don't have another good angle
for how that got set up. Blood Raven is a good angle.
It doesn't mean that's what it was and there is evidence
against it still, but I see where the theories you're right
that is. People would come up with that.
The very few people that have information about this blood
Raven is one of them, so it could make sense that someone
connected to him might have the different but you on it but this
with the same information that that built their case or
whatever. I think we lean against it and
have got reason to lean against it now.
But if it turned out to be the case, we won't be like what?
I can't believe it. There was nothing to set this
up. There was something to set it
up, something to set it up, yeah.
So here is a nice lengthy quote about White Tree and the
description of it. And I think it goes a long way
towards showing like think about being born in this place and
then growing up in this environment and what that might
do to your psyche. White Tree The village was named
on Sam's old maps. John did not think it much of A
village 4 tumble down one room. Houses of unmortared stone
surrounded an empty sheep, bold and a well.
The houses were roofed with sod, the windows shuttered with
ragged pieces of pie, and above them loomed the pale limbs and
dark red leaves. Of a monstrous great wherewood.
It was the biggest tree Jon Snow had ever seen.
The trunk near 8 feet wide, the branches spreading so far that
the entire village was shaded beneath their canopy.
The size did not disturb him so much as the face.
The mouth especially. No simple carved slash, but a
jagged hollow large enough to swallow a sheep.
Those are not sheep bones though.
Nor is that a sheep's skull in the ashes.
An old tree. Mormont sat, his horse frowning.
Old. His Raven agreed from his
shoulder. Old, old.
Old. And powerful.
John could feel the power. Could feel the power.
That's Dang. Makes me laugh a little bit.
Feel the power, feel the power. That tree is like.
Feel my power but like. You got the tuck.
If Craster could feel the power or Craster's mother like he grew
up there. Like John just passes through
and feels the power and is creeped out by that.
What does it do to you to be born there growing up under that
tree? It's like the only feature
that's like really notable about the place that you would how
would you not just see it all the time and.
Instead of watching a horror movie, you just go sit in front
of the tree. Yeah, I mean geez, if you.
I mean it's notable that a man who feels or maybe feels that he
has to or chooses to make sacrifices to the cold God was
born in a place, but the hugest wear what John has ever seen,
man. I think that's relevant.
I don't know exactly how, but I feel like it just that the
imprint that would leave on a child would have, I don't know.
It seems like that would have an impact.
Right? Parents out there you agree
right. Mormont thinks the skulls were
burned dead. Not necessarily something more
nefarious like not a burn sacrifice because for one thing
it may remind us of human sacrifice, which we know is done
in the past but and probably still is in some places in the
north and elsewhere. But if we're sticking to the
North, burning isn't how they do sacrifices.
I mean Melisandre does, but that's not how Northerners do
sacrifices. They do like the headings and
blood spilling on the wherewood and and trails hanging in the in
the limbs and all that. It's not like this.
So GR is probably right that they're just burning their dead
and and it's important to remember that they know why to
burn their dead because well and they walk and come after you.
If you don't do that. Yeah it's probably not human
sacrifice. Try that in a small village.
So this contextualizes Craster and someone who grew up kind of
normalizing all the stuff. Either maybe it is sacrifice, if
it seems like sacrifice or maybe you just seems normal his hair
starting to go white so he's probably in his 60s since it's
starting to go white. That's usually how George writes
that transition, and it's pretty, pretty accurate.
I guess you go from Gray. Be clear.
Not starting to go Gray because that happened before he was 60s.
Starting to go white? Yeah.
The Gray is going white, yes. So that puts his birther in the
early two 40s or so, which is around the same age as Tywin or
Kevin or the Mad King. Though I again doubt Blood Raven
was his father. The Ranger who was his father
would have served under Blood Raven because Blood Raven was
Lord Commander at 239. So very likely, unless Fraser's
a few years older then it would have been whoever the Lord
Commander was right before blood rape.
It may have been one of the Ravens teeth that would have
been interesting, but there were a lot of the Ravens teeth at
Castle Black. There would have been 50, maybe
60 maybe even more of them. So just on, you know more odds
than most. And the Blood Ravens last
ranging was in 252. So Craster was probably still a
young man living in White Tree I he didn't have his keep yet
probably. So whatever the value of
Craster's Keep as a shelter to the Rangers wasn't there when
Blood Raven was ranging. Maybe that's why he got lost on
that loud ranging. He didn't have Craster's Keep to
come back to for shelter, but I wonder if there was.
Some other established it on his last reign.
I mean, and then maybe, but you know, then maybe Craster came
and found it and took it over. He gave it to him.
He was like, hey son, you can have this now.
I don't. He founded it with him.
He's like, hey, we need to do this thing.
Trust me. Robert's Rebellion.
Yeah, so I that would say yes, that Craster heard about
Robert's Rebellion. But you got to think even some
of the big events in the Seven Kingdoms just wouldn't have made
the news north of the Wall unless it was really dramatic.
Like Summerhall maybe, maybe not.
You know like a bunch of Targaryens dying in fire might
that might spread all over people might be like even though
beyond the Wall they might hear that one.
The war of 9 Penny Kings maybe. But I think it's got to be
pretty big news to go up beyond the Wall, especially to a
remote, super ultra rural area, both rural and like tainted.
Like no one wants to go there. It's both like isolated because
the land isn't good, but also no one wants to live there because
of that. But also, no one wants to live
there because you're like, near him and all a lot of reasons.
Where was the Ninepenny kings? I think of that as being like in
the South End. Oh yeah, Alias was slain on the
step stones, like that's where their their invasion was.
Like a they they use that as like a jumping off point.
They didn't get very far. That makes me feel like it's
less likely, right? Something that happens like
maybe in the Veil or in Winterfell, that that'll make
its way. Well, the North did send its
troops to the 9:00 to fight, so they would have maybe known for
that reason, like a lot of soldiers leaving the North would
have. Oh, maybe, maybe a good time for
raiding because of a lot of fighting men have left the
North, you know? So that's the kind of thing I
think they might keep an eye on for that.
But for that reason, because it matters to them, it's an
opening. It's a very small group, those
born north of the wall to a free folk mother and Ranger father.
Of course it has to be that pairing because there's no
female Rangers, although it's not completely unique, right?
There's a few other examples. Nance Rader himself is born of a
Ranger and a free folk woman. Part of maybe why Crafter
doesn't like him because they have so much in common, but
Nance is so much more accomplished.
People like him. That's one.
The other is the son of Bail, the Bard who took over.
So the the all the the Starks who descend from this.
But that's that's like it. I don't know any others.
Just the two. Yeah, just those two.
And Crafter. So three.
Yeah. But we've got to there's got to
be others, like there's got to be plenty of other Rangers who
have impregnated plenty of other free poke women.
We just don't know their names. Any of them.
The child, the mother or the father.
Right. But it's got to be plenty.
But there might be some other reason Mance is resented by
Crafter besides just regular jealousy or something like that.
But Crasher doesn't really like many people, so we can't read
too much into this. Like a guy who doesn't like
anyone, like one particular person that doesn't really say
much. Nina guessed his intent of
jealousy quite possible. Man's never learned who his
father was either, but he was raised at Castle Black, so that
might be a reason for jealousy. Mans was actually raised to be a
Ranger, whereas when Crasher's mother brought him there, it
sounds like they didn't even give her a chance.
Because the way Grit says they blew their horns and drove her
up. Like they didn't even, like open
the gate or something. Like maybe they saw her coming
and were like wildling one of them like with a baby like, ah,
get her, you know, I don't know, Grit wasn't there.
So we don't know that's exactly what happened.
But I could see that being a a reason for bitterness.
They raised Mans. They didn't raise me from
Crasher's POVI think there's also perhaps a sense in which
Crafter thinks Mans is being ridiculous with respect to the
others. No.
She speaks of Mans as a brave, sweet, stubborn man for thinking
they can fight the others. Like the White Walkers were no
more than Rangers. That's a good point.
OSHA and her crew fled because they were like, this is dumb,
like we're not going to uniting all the free folk.
A great, amazing thing you can do, but to fight the others that
way? Not going to happen.
It's not going to work. They can't be beaten by the
weapons the wildlings have, just it's just that simple.
So Craster might have, might realize that he's like, yeah,
this is just a big dumb plan that's just not going to work
and you're going to get a lot of people killed.
And I don't know about that he has a better plan, but, well, he
he does. He's like everybody should
sacrifice to them and then we'll.
Be fine. He has another plan.
Maybe not a better plan. He has a plan he thinks is
better, but yeah, surely he should realize how that won't
work for everyone. They're not willing to sacrifice
their children. Also.
The man must have shifted gears at some point, right?
It doesn't seem like he's on a mission to fight the others.
No, you're right. He that's part of why he came to
the Wall. He's like we need to we want
your. He wanted to make a deal with
the Seven Kingdoms through strength.
Say, look, we're going to crush you unless you let us in and
help. And we're all fight the other we
want. We want the protection of the
Wall. But if you don't give it to us,
we're going to inflict damage on you that was kind of like.
A He's got a care and a stick or whatever.
Yes, you're right. That's the thing to remind
ourselves when discussing the events of Crashers Keep the
First Time anyway. There's a lot more reason for
superstition and for end times or new era is beginning, because
this is all happening under the shadow of the Red Comet.
Pretty easy to forget that the Red Comet's up there during all
this, right? During this scene at Craster's,
during the next few chapters before these.
It's all like that's the early part of The Clash of Kings.
Everything is happening under the Red Comet.
Everyone's constantly noticing it, making interpretations, some
of them interesting, some of them silly.
Craster recognizes John's look. He's like, you look like a
Stark. I'm not sure what other Stark he
would have seen besides Benjin. There's definitely some
possibilities because he's been there a while.
Benjin probably wasn't the only Stark on the in the Nights
Watch. There may have been, I mean, at
that time he was, But go back 30 years and maybe there was some
other Stark, I don't. I don't know.
I had a couple of thoughts on that too.
I wonder if Starks have a look in general.
We think they do. We've gone on this before.
We've talked about it before, I think.
And it would add to the idea of the others mistaking Raymour
Ross as a Stark, right that maybe they thought he was Jon
Snow or some other Stark and like, oh, he's he because he
looked like him. But that's not the right guy.
But if that's the case, they never came for John any other
time. He was beyond the wall for
months and months and months and months and months and months,
and not once did they come for him.
Like all that time he was with the free folk with igrit and.
Well, I guess it. I don't.
I shouldn't necessarily assume they were coming for him.
They just encountered him. Thought it might be him.
Oh. Never realized it wasn't.
Doesn't necessarily mean they're coming for him.
But if they see him, they'll recognize him.
That's my thought. Yeah, I guess it's possible.
If the Starks have a look and it's been around for a long
time, then yeah, it's pretty much possible that anyone or
anything could be aware of that. He says he hasn't seen Denjin in
three years. Nina says BS.
You haven't seen him in three years.
That does not make sense. Let's go over the reasons why
Benjin was and is technically the 1st Ranger.
He's still acting, hasn't officially been declared dead,
it just doesn't look good. And while we don't know how long
he was First Ranger, he's been a Ranger for the better part of
two decades. Or had been two decades.
Crashers Keep isn't right next to the wall, but it's pretty
close. Certainly close enough for
Waymart Royce to stop there at his ranging, and Waymart refused
to sleep under the the roof there.
But you're telling me that the 1st Ranger of the Watch didn't
check in at Craster's when he went to look for Waymar Bull?
Did this guy pass through here? In fact, he did because Craster
says Waymar passed through there.
You're really telling me Benjin didn't go check with Craster
Bull unless he vanished before getting to Craster's, which is
also very, very likely considering how close to the
wall it is, right? Like it just doesn't.
It does not add up. I have a counterpoint.
Benjam might avoid Crash, or just like John wants to, but why
would he avoid if he's looking for looking for people?
But that's that's the like. In general.
I can see why in general I agree, but in this case it does
not. Specific reason.
So although and I don't know who Benjamin might have had with
them, but he might have sent someone else like I don't want
to see that man, but we need to check.
You go check. Tell me what he said.
Well, I mean. Possibility, I guess.
But he left with a very small group.
I don't that doesn't really make sense either.
I mean, if they're, yeah. This is not a hill I'm going to
die on, but I'm saying it is a possibility.
I agree, but it's very thin to me.
It's doesn't move the needle. I think that clearly Craster is
lying, especially because he's lied about other things.
We also have a good reason to think Benjin made it as far as
the fist of the first man. He's very likely the one who
left behind that Nights Watch package of arrowheads,
considering it was a fresh cloak and not an old cloak.
And it also doesn't really make sense that he went as far as
that, and everyone talks about how Crafters is such a valuable
place to rest and all that, and we don't hear the Benjin shunned
it. There's no indication of that.
Like Benjin specifically, John asks to your Mormont if he knew
and he's like, yes, all the Rangers knew.
So that includes. All the Rangers knew, and John
says even Benjin and Mormont says all the Rangers so.
I don't want to assume it, but. We see that John doesn't want to
avoid it. Maybe Benjin would have wanted
to avoid it. And maybe Benjin, especially in
the direness of the current moment, he just alright.
My my troubles with Craster aren't as important as saving
humanity, so I guess they'll go deal with this guy and then.
But and the other reason would be then why would he have seen
him three years ago? Why would he have come then if
he was avoiding him when it wasn't dangerous, when there
wasn't some? Just now, after 17 years as
arrangers decided to stop. Yeah.
So yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of holes there.
I mean, you're right. That is, there's still a thread
of potential there. But yeah, he's most certainly
lying. He also knows about Garrett's
fate, which is interesting. Like he knew that Garrett ran
off and he knew that he would have been executed.
So another reason to to guess that he knew about there has
seen Benjamin. Nina says Garrett was only
executed after Waymart and his party disappeared.
Because Garrett, obviously Gamart combined Waymar and
Garrett. That's cool Gamar Garrett.
Quite a ship there. They really didn't like each
other, but somehow it came around.
Garrett obviously deserted Waymar's party in the watch as a
whole after the others killed Waymar and Will.
Only someone who went to Crafter's after Ned's execution
of Garrett would have been able to tell Crafter that Garrett was
beheaded. How did Crafter learn that
Garrett was beheaded without talking to Rangers?
After that it happened. There's almost no way to to
know. Especially because it was close
to me. Like maybe like five years
passes and there's a lot of time for the rumor to spread and a
lot of places and get back to crafts.
But we're talking like months later, only we brought out OSHA
earlier. I wonder if he knew OSHA or any
of them that in that group. I mean, it was Osha's group was
Rangers and wildlings, so it was, yeah, that was a mixed bag.
There's he could have known any of them.
And I also wonder if he was ever a Raider himself.
I'm going to guess no, because of how much he seems to distrust
other men. And you need to like you're in a
team, like a squad going over the wall and fighting together
and doing that game isn't like he works well with others.
Well, he works well with others. It doesn't work well with the
lower case. Hey, the puns keep coming
because I call Craster's Keep Crasterly Rock.
Yes, because at some point he left White Tree.
Maybe he's a teenager. Maybe he was a mama's boy and
lived with her for a long time. I don't know.
I kind of feel like he was a loner from an early age, though.
Just no one liked him, not even his mother.
You know, this guy's just anyway he did.
Maybe he did some other things before building his place.
Or maybe he took the spot from someone else if he found it that
way and added to it. No idea why he chose that spot,
but interestingly, it's not near a wherewood.
There's no wherewood near his keep, which I think is notable
as he's like I do not want to live near a wherewood after
where I grew up like that. I'm done living near a big
creepy wherewood. Not doing that.
I'm curious how he built it, but it's not exactly impressive.
It's called a keep by courtesy. It is really just.
John described it as a midden heat with a roof and a fire pit.
And Nina points out like he used slave labor, like he made his
his wives work on this place most certainly and and girls as
well. The show makes it look like more
of a structure than it is. It's don't have that in your
mind when you're picturing it. It's hard not to because it's
like the only image you might have, but that building is
larger and more like taller. And yeah, it's more of a real
structure. This is not.
You could, you know over 10 plus years, 20 or however long he's
been there a couple good summers.
You know, you could you could improve.
You could grow a place. I still don't know necessarily
if it's in the book meant to be as.
Well built as it wasn't show but I I can give it credit like
especially because John too would particularly downplay it.
What it keep is and his mind is so different like other Wildlys
might be impressed with this castle that Craster has you know
so it doesn't have any defenses no wall, no towers.
It has a ditch like a dike basically.
So like a a slow, like a little miniature barrier that might
slow people down briefly, but not much.
There's a castle has a Moat. Yeah, you can fill it in with
water. It would just freeze.
It would be an ice mowed, yeah. Why would an old man with a
household of 19 women and girls he's enslaved not feel the need
to build the fences? Isn't that weird?
Like, this is the culture that approves of stealing women.
It's like, yes, it's perfectly okay to sneak into someone's
house, grab a person and run away with them.
If you can hold on to them, then you earned it.
So what's the deal here? Like, are people that afraid of
Craster? Are they that creeped out by
him? Yeah, maybe.
Because I don't know what else. And I, like the others, aren't
like offending his territory for him because he's sacrificed.
It doesn't work like that. We're not going that far with
with this relationship. There's no evidence of that.
He says the old gods will. The cold gods won't come for
him. The gods won't come for him
because he's a godly man he doesn't say anything about.
He never says why the other free folk leave him alone.
But things that Igrit says kind of say it all.
Like, yeah, we could go steal a woman from him but they don't
want to. They don't like.
It's like what's been done to her.
Like that's Craster's child as well.
They don't want someone of his bloodline.
They don't. Yeah, like if his blood is black
and he bears a heavy curse again, that's just a just a no,
no from a social taboo point. Like this guy's A Kinslayer and
a yeah, you don't want to mix with that.
So interesting. Windowless hall deer hide flaps
on the door, bear and ram skulls on the gate.
Sod roof. Not a wooden roof, not a stone
roof. It's sod room for 30 to 50,
though, so it is. It's kind of decent size to it.
There's a cellar, kind of sleeping loft, a big fire pit,
not just a fire pit, but a big one.
And that's the that's the difference between life and
death for some raining parties. They say this big fire pit
because it's got a roof over it 50 to 70 years ago, before
Crafts was there. I don't know.
They have died. I guess maybe, Like I said with
Blood Ravens party maybe. Yeah.
Did they not range as far in the past?
What did they do before? It was tougher.
In my day, ranging has gotten easy.
It's soft on you. Rangers of these days you got it
easy. So on the on the idea that he's
a quote friend to the Watch, there's someone else that
doesn't like this arrangement so much, another younger man who's
got a more amiable, humorous take than Jon Snow.
Dollar said says. Do you know the difference
between a wildling who's a friend to the Watch and one
who's not? Asked the Dower Squire.
Our enemies leave our bodies for the crows and the wolves, our
friends. Bury us in secret graves.
Come on now, That's not fair. They know better than to leave a
body unburned. They would burn the body, but
yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, true friend burns your
body when you die. A smart friend.
Yeah, a smart friend. Smart enemy burns your body?
Yeah. Smart human beyond the wall.
See a body? Burn it.
You know, like, you know how there's that that thing about
how apparently rhinos will stamp out a fire in the Savannah when
they see it? Because yeah, certain animals
will will actually stamp out fires.
Because they, I think we should replace our fire department with
Rhino departments. I like it.
Yeah, these guys are they?
Must say about some things that aren't fires also.
Well then we'll have a rot. We'll have like a rhino
department, for the rhinos will be confusing.
This is the Rhino Fire Department and the.
The rhino department? That's to deal with rhino
emergencies? Yeah.
Anyways, don't say Rhino, say Rye.
Yes. That'll be part of the rhino.
Pumpernickel. Yes, Paul.
Wheat nose craster says Waymar Royce refused to sleep under his
roof as he said. John, of course, has that same
good for Waymar. I mean, you know, like that kid
was little too much vigor and a lot enough listening.
But he again is not definitely not a crave in this one, right?
I had a good death, A stupid death maybe, but a good one.
Brave, etcetera. So John and John feels shame at
leaving Gilly behind. I don't know.
I wonder if Waymar. Waymar might not have that like
to him. That might be they might be
beneath him. He was kind of a Snooty guy, but
I don't know. We don't know that much about
him. We don't know what he thought.
He might have seen that as an abomination.
That should be. I mean, Waymar's.
Don't forget, Waymar's house is the Royces, and they they're
they've got a relationship with the Old Gods, unlike a lot of
Southerners. So he might take some of this
even more unkindly. Not that a Southerner wouldn't
be deeply offended by all this, but Waymar might have been even
a touch higher, and he was also a little touchy himself.
I can see that maybe he didn't like it and didn't want to be
part of it, but knew he couldn't ruffle feathers so much by
trying to do something about it, you know?
Maybe he wanted to one day, but knew he was too young and needed
to make his play after he whatever.
But another thought I've had about this with both Waymar and
maybe John. Maybe it's a little bit of
privilege, like they have eaten well.
John got a couple good meals from Craster and then decided I
don't want to eat his food. He didn't actually eat his food.
Oh, he didn't get any in the 1st place.
Okay. He refused to because that's
what Gilly says You didn't. You didn't eat his food.
You can like he's like that would be a guest, right?
Violation. He's like no, you didn't sleep
under his room. You didn't need his food.
He kind of did though he he wasn't offered food by Craster.
But remember Ghost killed 2 rabbits and John a John ate one
of them with Sam's. But John doesn't think of it
that way. He's just like I'm not doing it.
It doesn't come to that. But still, there's some wiggle
room. But.
One way or the other, John is the steward.
He's getting fed better than the other Night's Watch.
He's got a better cloak and a better sword and better boots.
He's not suffering as much in the colder rain as these other
soldiers who are close to starving the same.
Exactly right. It's a little easier when you're
not in a brink of starvation, when you've got nice clothes to
be pick and choosey about what meal you get.
Now I would still like to think that I starving.
Would not be okay with Craster. Maybe I would accept the food so
I don't die, but I would still have it in my mind to do
something about it eventually. Maybe I even would forgo that if
the world was in danger and that was a higher priority.
But. But there is an element of me
that that wonders about the Plovich nature way more.
Maybe bench into I think that's a strong real world point too.
That's why you know people of less means push people of more
means to make changes rather than forcing it themselves
sometimes. Because they can't, because you
can't. Like it's the people with the
power that have that have the power to enact that change, and
they have the privilege to do so without as much cost to their
own wellbeing. Maybe maybe I could give Jorah
or a jor some credit too. Maybe he would like to make this
moral stand against crasher, but when I may I let my men freeze
starve to death? Yeah, like he's in a different
position. Yeah, and John can just do that
on his own. I'm not someone with Roof, but
like, some of the others can't. Like, no, I my cloak is too
thin, Like I'm screwed if I don't have this fire.
But you're right. Yeah, it's a really interesting
subdiscussion here, Nina says. I would like to think Waymar
deliberately refused to sleep under Crasher's roof because he
realized the same thing John did, that Crass was a terrible
person and that he didn't want to be subject to the strictures
of guest right from such a horrible host, some someone that
he has this huge moral problem with.
Waymar was certainly arrogant and entitled, but he showed
honor most of its way through. Maybe not the way he treated his
subordinates, but in most things that in that brief time seeing
him. It's definitely possible though,
that he's just purely being superior, that he's just like,
no, you're some filthy wildling. I'm not sleeping beneath your
roof. You know, it's got to be.
It could be just that simple. So we're ascribing the potential
of extra honor where it might just be looking down on him with
and it might be a combination of the two.
It might be like that fuels his his honor is fueled by his
contempt. He's like, I'm going to take out
High Road, but also you're gross and I'm looking down on you.
Be fair, it's not that high of a road.
We all think he's gross and look down at him.
So there's a an existing trope that, well, there's a lot of
tropes here, a lot of existing tropes, horror tropes.
There's the, I mean, George called this forest, the haunted
forest. I mean, he decided not to be
creative with it at all. I mean, that's so
straightforward that it has to be intentional choice to make
it. So like, that's the most simple
name you can come up with. It's like it's like the most
basic fairy tale. You haven't even described this,
the land. It's like there was a girl who
lived in a town and nearby was that like, you don't describe
anything but you have this description of the haunted
forest Okay. That's what it's called.
This is a fully developed world. I still have a place called the
haunted forest. The gorge is definitely
reversing. Inverting a trope or or really
leaning into it maybe sometimes it's hard to tell which he's
which is which with him because he's so Trixie.
But another trope I want to point to.
I don't know the name of it. I think I saw a Shea trying to
look it up over here while I was, while I was like while
we're while we're talking here. I love TV trips so I was trying
to find an actual yeah, the trope is you can sleep under my
roof but you can't mess with my daughter slash wife.
We've all seen this one before. It's been in a lot of fairy
tales, horror stories. Seinfeld did it.
Freaking Seinfeld did it with Newman when he's lost in the
some rural area, when they're doing their they're recycled
cans plan when they're trying to drive all the cans in a mail
truck to another state and gets lost.
And yeah, Scramer kicks him out of the truck for weight for the
same people or whatever, so he gets stuck on a farm anyway.
Yeah, the closest trip I could find was just not under the
parents roof. But that's not quite the right
Yeah, that's when you come to visit the parents and they get
to live by. You can't sleep together because
you're staying. Exactly.
But yeah, I don't know the name for it.
I didn't know how to look it up. I was like Sleep Roof.
Well, what I did was I went. To episodes of TV on TV Trip
where I knew that it happened like when Bender can't sleep
with the Farmer's daughters on the moon and Futurama too.
And Futurama. Bender can't like the key.
There's there's Little Bell and the Crush Inator, and he ends up
with sleeping with Crush Inator. Anyway, so Crush Inator is the
daughter That's. Yeah.
So I went to that episode and, like, didn't have it listed
there. And then I tried going to the
King of the Hill episode, where Bill isn't supposed to sleep
with his three cousins. You remember like, he's his
cousins and he's like, he's not supposed to.
Touch the the, the beautiful flowers and the New Orleans
cousins anyways. But no, it also just never
listed there, so I don't know TV.
Let me down So this is a an opportunity y'all if you're
listening send us your favorite example of the you can't sleep
under. You can sleep under my roof and
have my food and all that, but don't touch my daughter wife and
and usually in the story the daughter slash wife flirts with
them like make like is an enticer like it's is a seducer
like makes it a little tougher because or a lot tougher because
they're flirting or something. Yeah, so I was a temptation.
So I also tried looking up like temptation ones, like I found
like things about like The Final Temptation and stuff like that.
But so Gilly is like an inversion of this trope, because
there's no lust involved here. Like the lust, Sam has to, like,
be led by the nose when sex finally comes into their
relationship way later. But at this point, there's none
of that. There's no, like, look at her.
There's not even a shred of attraction on either side.
It's just save me because my child's going to be sacrificed.
So it's the temptation is to be honorable in the face of what is
called a different sort of dishonor, like an affront to the
gods. So it's it's a real, like what's
the actual honorable thing to do here, Which is a a bat is a
recurring theme that George likes to to play with.
It's like what What is honorable?
What isn't? What do you do?
When to when honor conflicts. What do you do when people think
something, when the society says something is honorable, but you
just strongly disagree? And all the readers do, too.
There's a lot of examples like this in in the Song of Ice and
Fire. George is really good at that.
A side topic I wonder about, which is a segue to the
second-half of our episode today, in which we will spend a
lot of time talking about the others and the sacrifice and
then this stuff. We we've set this up.
Now, we're going to dive into it in the second-half.
But a question I have to lead into that, as I'm saying, is to
keep still protected after crash with death.
Do the others associate the sacrifice with that piece of
land, that building, or is it like a deal they have with him
specifically? I think it's the inhabitants
because I don't know that they recognize him as an individual.
He might think they do, but that's something we'll explore
in the second-half. Something for you to think about
as we move our way towards that. One of many mysteries that we
cannot quite get to the bottom of but sure does make us think.
But first, our mid roll portion of the show, the actor who
played Craster in Game of Thrones is named Robert Pugh.
He was in a lot of recognizable shows that many of you will have
heard of or have watched, like The White Queen and Shameless
and Nightfall and Doctor Who and Torchwood and Master and
Commander. And maybe he's friends with
Russell Crowe because he was also in the Robin Hood with
Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.
There's like two of the only movies he's been and he's been a
lot of TV shows. So also that Robin Hood also had
Mark Addy and and Max von Seido, who of course Robert Brathian
and Blood Raven respectively. Also the Oscar Isaac in it,
which I just he's not related to Game of Thrones at all, but I'm
like I didn't know he was in that.
That's interesting. That's a lot of interesting cast
members for a movie that sucked. Just so you know, it was awful.
I don't recall it. I think I didn't see it, so that
might be why I didn't bother to see it.
Because people said such bad things about it.
Indeed. So we're still running our
Patron special. It's only got 2 weeks left,
folks. You got two weeks left to sign
up at the two dollar level, get all our bonus episodes, get
involved in episode voting, behind the scenes stuff every
once in a while, get yourself a cool nickname.
If you sign up at a higher level, you can get things like
access to scripts and other things like that.
But if you sign up now for $2.00, a $2.00 level is going
away in a couple weeks. Two weeks, we're right.
We start Valerie's Fire and Blood.
So if you if you get that lock price locked in, you get to keep
it even as the price goes up. So you'll stay at the $2.00
level even as it goes away. One thing you get is to
participate in our Quick Flash and trivia and gaming sessions,
right? That's right.
We just had our second one of those on Thursday.
That was a lot of fun. We played Quick Flash three
times and then we played ATKO, which is super fun.
That's the T-shirt design game where people draw T-shirt
designs and then put slogans and then match them together and
create these really funny combinations.
It's very, of course, very Game of Thrones themed.
There were some funny drawings for sure.
We probably have like 15 people participating.
To be a player, you have to be a patron, but you can participate
in audience voting, which is a lot of fun still without being a
patron, so. Worth noting I guess if you go
to the Facebook page or the Facebook group, but the Facebook
page will be easier to find it. We stream the last two whiplash
sessions. So you should you.
You could go there and just kind of get a sense of the vibe and
check it out and all that on the Facebook page.
Now the phrase the cold gods is uttered, I'm pretty sure, only
by Craster, Maybe one of his wives.
No one of the wives says it, like even Gilly says it, but
they're the only ones who say it.
So only people, only Craster and people who.
Are raised by Craster, who of course would use the same
language he does for most things.
Calls it that. So let's we're going to devote
most of the second-half to to this part and we'll start with a
key piece of dialogue. Is it Craster who frightens you,
Gilly? For the baby, not for me.
If it's a girl, that's not so bad.
She'll grow a few years and he'll marry her.
But Nella says it's to be a boy and she's had sex and knows
these things. He gives the boys to the gods
come the white cold he does, and of late it comes more often.
That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a
taste for mutton only. Now the sheep's gone too.
Next it will be dogs Till she lowered her eyes and stroked her
belly. What gods, Thomas remembering.
They'd seen no boys in Krasher's keep, nor men either, save
Krasher himself. The cold gods, she said.
The ones in the night, the white shadows.
There are so many rabbit holes in that conversation.
Let's do some of the smaller ones first.
Like, I hope that's not literal When she says he'll grow the the
girl will grow a few years, then he'll marry them like a few.
Not even 10, he gets. And then she says of late it
comes more often now that we kind of knew already.
Yeah, winter is it's getting colder the the visits are coming
more often that that really just.
Yes, the appearance of them to weigh My Royce.
And at the fist of the first man, yes, definitely.
Of course the fist comes after this.
But still we have that that we know about that.
How long has this been happening again?
That's when we wondered, like, did his mother sacrifice to the
old, like, when did this arrangement happen?
How did it come along? And he decide to do it?
He's like, I'm. I know I'll start sacrificing to
them. No one, no one does that.
But I'll show everybody how it's done.
You might have had the idea. I mean, he's got hermit vibes
for sure, except for that he's got all these women that he's
forced to be around him. So, yeah, if you, if you're an
independent thinker, you're just like Craster.
Yeah, sorry, independent thinker.
Someone told me how to think, not what I meant.
So Nina says it's probably a little of column, a little
column B. She doesn't think Craster came
up with the idea on her on his own.
This is a practice that is probably existed for a long
time. The others have existed for a
long time. If you've got a big powerful
being that you don't know what it wants, that's a normal thing
to do. Try to offer things like get,
make offerings to the gods. Like that happens like that's
happened in the real world. People just they don't know what
the gods wants. So they give them things they
think they want. I mean that that's the source of
a lot of real world logic, quote UN quote, behind sacrifice in
the 1st place. It's like give them something
that's valuable to us or that we think is valuable to them so
they don't destroy us or the sun keeps rising or that so that
spring comes. It's a very similar like.
Basic deity logic of we got to give them something or they'll
kill us. But the idea that it's got to be
sons like that is where Nina thinks Craster is just making
that up because it's it's what he wants it it works for him.
That way he can keep all these other men away and no one's ever
going to challenge him. So it's like, yeah, I'm going.
To leave. Also so that he can keep
creating more children. If he if you give all the women
away, then you won't be able to make any more babies to
sacrifice. That's a good point, yeah.
Logistically he needs as many baby makers as he can to pull
off this, keep the others at Bay with as many sons as possible.
And as the sun, as the cold gets colder, he needs more sons to
do. I mean this is obviously his
logic is quote UN quote. Why can't he get more goats,
more human, when babies like? Because it's weird enough, and
it seems like that was something that worked, at least some at
some point, right? She says that the sheep are all
gone now, so we have less. Like, how long did it take for
the sheep to go? How did he find out the sheep
work? There's so many things about
this. So we're.
Saying that like the young boy, like babies are at all turned
into others, that's at all a thing that we think is possible,
right? Yeah, yeah, just ficturing
sheep. Others.
Now that's where the giant that's where the giant ice
spiders come from. They're.
All, yeah, that's what ice spiders.
Yeah. Horse was sheep originally,
yeah. So the idea like they like it's
it's the story say that they like life, they like young life
especially. So if you're sacrificing young
the youth or young animals. And that kind of fits into what
has been said for thousands of years.
But it's interesting to think that if how long have they been
collecting the sacrifices is he putting them out there and just
a sheep is out there and just some wolf comes and takes it and
he's like Yep, the cold gods came.
There also does seem to be a coldness that comes with the
two, right? I don't think so it's possible
but but the evidence suggests no.
Gilly and other some of the other wives have seen the others
they've been able to describe them.
So kind of don't think the whole just some wild animals coming
off and he's saying it's the cold.
I don't think that works. It's a theory because they've
been present, like literally presents.
But when did it? So.
Every time a wolf comes, it gets extra cold that doesn't really
fit. Yeah.
And they they feel like it's a certain that the cold has like a
quality to it that they recognize.
And like Darwin has that he can smell it a certain way.
It's like there's something about it.
It's off. And maybe someone who's more,
who's lived beyond the wall other years can is better at
sensing that difference. The differentiating between cold
natural cold and supernatural cold.
Someone who's felt a lot of both might know that there are a lot
of 1. Might know something's different
about this cold. Something feels evil about it.
I'm going to take this seriously because we know the others are a
thing. You know?
That kind of. Thing even aside from the
supernatural element there, there's a difference in a humid
cold and a dry cold, for example, right?
And often? Usually cold comes in either
with wind or as the sunsets. But imagine if it's the same
time of day and there's no wind and it suddenly goes from 40
degrees to 20 degrees like that. Maybe the feel of the cold is
the same, but the nature of how quickly it came doesn't.
Is it natural? You know?
Yeah, let's look at a different piece of evidence here, she
says. Nella.
Nella says it's to be a boy and she's had six and knows these
things. Does that mean she's had six
children or six boys? Because damn, six boys, I had to
give them all away. I figured six children though,
yeah. I think maybe, yeah.
If he's been doing this a long time and and and it's been
working a long time, then it means the others have been back
sooner than we might have fought.
We might have been thinking they've Waymar's encounter with
them, me was, they've just returned.
But if Crash has been doing this for a while, he's been
sacrificing his sons for like, more than a generation.
Definitely more than a generation.
Some of his wives are always almost as old as he is, or at
least in their past, their childbearing years, and have had
children. So like, possibly as long as,
like 40 years. He's been doing this way before
the comet, way before. I mean that's that's like Summer
Hall. That's like when Summer hall
happened 40 years ago. So not that they're connected
events, but I'm just saying that's how long ago it was.
So the others have been coming, have been back that long or even
longer. Like I don't think that he was
the first one to notice that's that would be quite a
coincidence. Seems like people much farther N
would have been the ones on that tip sooner than the people
really close to the wall. Like the Fens would have known
sooner. You know, like man says, the
Fens couldn't stand against the others, nor could the ice river.
None of these other farther northern people could stand
against the others. It sounds like they may have
tried. The fact that animal sacrifice
works is what you're saying. Sean's like, why not just keep
giving them animals then? Well, that's that's where we get
into Craster is made a deal with the devil.
Not just made a deal with the devil, but he's profiting from
it. He's create.
He's like the former slave that helps other slaves become
enslaved, that helps the masters.
Or, you know, just someone who turns against their own people.
You know, someone who's the conduit for the worst things.
Nina says. Crash was probably just guessing
what the others want. It selfishly doesn't want to
surrender any women because, like Sean said, he wants to keep
enslaving them and raping them and having more children.
The others, so far as we know, can't talk to people.
They have that language crossed. But there's no reason to think
Craster speaks scrath or that they can speak to him.
So there's no, like, hammering out an arrangement here, right.
He's they're like, they didn't leave a grocery list of yes boys
first sheeps. So I can dot like they, you
know, like she's like, well, that's what they.
I could. I was actually.
Could he have dreams? Maybe.
Playing a scenario out in my mind where they maybe they
indicate maybe he brings them to sheep and they're like no.
Nod their heads, shake their heads and want 2 sheep he's
like. So it goes back and get another
and then so now maybe the others keep raising the stakes maybe
maybe he brings 2 sheep and now they shake their head and he's
you know what three and they're like shake their heads, still
know like what do you want And they point at a child.
He's like, oh geez, I I can see how it might be communicated.
If they want something beyond what he's been giving.
I can see that too. I think I can see that too, and
especially. That would be a very scary,
menacing scene to portray too, because like and you can see why
the others would want, would like the arrangement.
They're like okay, here's a guy who's willing to give us fresh
meat. You know, we, you know,
sometimes it's a baby. Like we will take the sheep and
the dogs, but hey, sometimes it's a baby.
The problem with that is still, why don't the others just go
take it? How can you stop them?
Why does he need to make a sacrifice?
Why don't I just walk in and take?
Because then there will be. Well, yeah, that's a good point,
I guess. Yeah, maybe there's some.
Well, then they don't know. Well, then how does he know that
that's who it's taking? How does he know?
To make more. Why?
Does he need to know? I'm just saying, why are the
others doing it? Because he's willing.
He's leaned into it. He's profiting from this
arrangement. So he wants to give them what
they want. So if they want sons, he's going
to give them to them. But if they take sons without
like they are taking, they're forcing.
He doesn't understand how or why it's happening.
Yeah, Like, if it's just like, hey, other sheep vanished.
Like, how does he know who took it?
He doesn't know to, like, worship them.
Like they. Yeah, I mean, it's possible.
It doesn't seem to fit quite as well.
Yeah. I think Crasser is as bad as we
think. This isn't some like, he has no
choice here. His sacrifices do seem to
actually keep the others away. It does work, as far as we can
tell. That doesn't mean it's good.
That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Obviously, he's made a deal with the devil in a way that
maximizes the return for himself.
It's worse than slavery because he's giving away his own kin.
It's kinsling and slavery or just sacrifice.
It's either slavery or sacrifice.
He doesn't know what's being done with those children.
They're probably just being killed.
Some people think they're being turned into others.
I'm not so sure about that. But think about the age problem,
although that might be resolved by the length of time difference
that we may have spoken to here. Maybe this has been going on a
lot longer than we thought. Gilly and the other wives think
that they are the sons. They think the sons are new
others, but crash invited. I just told them that as a way
to like, get them to buy into this whole like get them not
scream and cry and and try to kill him for giving away their
sons. Like if they think it's oh, it's
I'm not the one doing it's the others that demand the sons.
If he's convinced them all that this is true then they'll go
along with it because like what choice do they have They'll die
otherwise. But if not they might kill him
they might like that might be the thing that finally pushes
them like no, you're not taking my son.
I mean this is moving Gilly to run away that's how.
That's how like she's not as concerned for herself.
She wants her son to survive and Craster knows that.
That's probably the thing that understandably a woman or a man
too, we care most about is their children.
So he's found a way to blame it on a higher authority figure,
authority figure, when really it's just something that he's
doing because it works for him because he keeps the men away
from him. He doesn't have anyone to
compete with him for the rule of his keep no young boy to stand
up for their mother. Saying I don't like how you
treating my mother. I'm going to fight you.
And that boy might be able to kill Craster if he's strong and
tough and Craster's getting old. And yeah, Roger doesn't want any
competition. Then he has to be tough and
strong if you do it in his sleep for which?
Absolutely. I remember, I've seen remember
there being a couple of the Nights watch wondering why that
hasn't happened. What?
Was it answered prayer? Answer prayer.
I would name that Axe answer prayer.
In fact, we have that quote later in the episode.
He's basically arranged the sacrifice scenario to come out
ahead for himself. He's like, Yep, I'm getting rid
of my sons that I didn't want anyway, getting protection,
getting to do all the getting all this labor from these women
and getting all the sex I want and making them do all my work.
And I'm just sitting here drinking and hunting and
whatever he else he does and that's the life he wants to
live, it's it's bad. It's real bad.
And it's quite a moral conundrum for the Night's Watch.
So his attitude towards bastard, he comes out a few times.
This is sort of tied into it all when he meets John Hill.
Pines that imagine marry a woman before sleeping with her.
Yeah, even if they're five. Crafter.
Even if they're your daughter. I mean, come on.
Like, yes, we'll talk about the most tempted moral high ground.
And of course, Crasher himself is the same as John, You know,
he was born. He's a bastard as well.
Nina calls this a obviously completely ridiculous assertion.
Crafter's part What agency do the women have in this scenario?
Like they can't say no to becoming his wives.
They he abuses them too. I mean not just beyond the
raping. He's abusing them in other ways
and other free folk hate him and they hate the Night's Watch.
So they hate, like they hate both sides and they hate the
fact that he's part crow and they hate the fact that he does
all these other things, breaks all these taboos and and they
kind of hate that he's protected from the others because of how
he does that and the Night's Watch will attack without his
protection. So they are also some of them
are also kind of like what do we do about this How can any of
them have a real choice in the matter though like his his wives
they just don't. So there's it's beyond hypocrisy
and I want Nina wonders if this is a way that he grew he grew up
believing this as a way to justify his existence.
If he believed that his nice Watch father had rejected him
then he might have decided that the Nights Watch prohibition on
marriage and children was itself evil.
That's the bad part, is like, well, this is the problem.
Like, you can't marry. Like the Nights Watch is these
rules against marriage. And that was that affected his
life path so much as a child because he was never, he was
never going to have a father. And because of this weird law
that they have, from his perspective, it's weird.
That's why. So that's why he's so adamant
about marriage, because it's kind of the opposite of what he
was born into. It's also a form of generational
trauma. Crafter was abandoned by his own
father before he even knew him, and that's the fate of his sons
as well, except for the they're not just abandoned or killed or
converted into undead demon things.
We're not actually not undead, George says.
The others are not dead. So not, they're not undead.
They are some sort of spiritual evil demonic being or something.
But they're not undead. They just make undead.
Thinking about the idea of why the women don't kill him, it
still doesn't take away from what he's doing, being evil and
disgusting and everything else. But maybe they know he's right.
Maybe they know if they kill him that the others will come and
kill all of them too. Well, I don't think they would
know. I don't think they could
possibly know that they might fear at them.
Right, right. They might.
They know that for a fact, because nobody does.
Yeah, I mean it's the same thing.
Like what is belief like if they feel like they feel strongly?
They might believe it or not. They see him put the babies out.
They see this monster come take the baby.
They think, well, if we don't put the baby out, the monster's
going to get us. And we need a man to make
babies. He's the only man.
Like, you know, maybe they feel stuck.
That's a good point. Never mind the gaslighting that
they might face and the threat of violence and everything else.
But what if also their supernatural occurrence is
making them afraid beyond Yeah. It's like all the women have to
think like that. It's like a couple of women,
especially like women who've been there a long time, who are
like, in charge. If the older women are bought
in, they're going to help craft or spread these lies to the
younger women and they're all going to believe it.
It's also free folk ethos. Okay.
Let's look at this next line because it kind of fits in here,
but. This is our place.
Crafter keeps us safe. Better to die free than live a
slave. Of course they are slaves.
They just don't realize that they think this is.
They don't realize they're in. They've been lived in this so
long they can't look at it from the outside and say okay no, you
are a slave. They think that the people in
the Seven kingdoms live in slaves, but they're more.
Most of them are more free than than crafters wives.
They don't have the choices that even a common born woman in the
North would have. That is not a great life either.
But those folk have more freedom than these.
And especially because like maybe it's interesting kind of
back and forth, like as a woman you're not going to get drafted
into the army. You might get drafted into
service for the Army, though, So it's maybe, maybe that's not
much of A differentiator after all, you.
Might get drafted into service for a husband.
Yeah, yeah, true. Like a similar scenario like
this where it's just you. Are quote UN quote even a high
for a woman, Right? Yeah.
Yeah, even a high born woman doesn't necessarily get to marry
the man she loves. She just gets stuck with whoever
she told. Yeah, it's a real crapshoot
there. And what about being a slave
when you're dead? Like a white?
That's a kind of a recurring, like, meta consideration we
have. Like, do they remember who they
were? Do they have, like a concept of
what's going on? Do they feel controlled?
Either way, it's an undead army of of dead slaves.
You can look at it that way for sure.
I mean also says this quote is such a perfect encapsulation of
Crasher as a character for several reasons.
First of all, the women that crash to keep our slaves, As
we've said, Crasher may not use that term, and he may not.
He doesn't literally keep them enslaved, but they're just as
stuck. They can't go anywhere.
And it's they're they're mentally enslaved too because
they believe that this is better.
Like they've been tricked into thinking this is this is the way
it is. Now, In some ways some of the
aspects are true, like it is tough to live beyond the Wall
and having protections valuable. But the stuff they've been told
about the of the Cold Gods is is the heart of where a lot of
these lies are, as is the truth of what's on the other side of
the wall and how people live over there.
But these are things Craster can lie about.
Knowing that there's almost no way anyone can set them
straight. Who's going to tell them what
life on the other side of the Wall is actually like?
Will They even believe it? Because it's being told to them
by Nights Watch? Who Craster has surely embedded
them with a distrust of the Nights Watch like most free folk
have. So it's not exactly a hard sell.
And the rest you had to start from birth.
You teach someone from youth to believe these things, they're
probably going to believe them. It's hard to break out of what
you've been taught as a child, especially when there's no
alternative viewpoints around to even entertain in the 1st place.
So this safety is not really safety.
It's like the the safety of a of a cult, you know, where they
demands everything of you and only prevents you from harm.
But it's it expects everything else from you.
It's kind of like the the Mary Matts door thing.
Once over again, what is life when everything you know and
love is gone? Like life is, You may still be
alive. You have your safety but
everything that made your life worth living is gone.
And and worse than that you have all these painful memories and
trauma of what you used to have or what used to be good and and
that's gone forever. So yeah, like this all comes
back to that I think. By the way I didn't mention it's
not Speaking of Danny and these other things.
That moment of finding the bones in the white trees, Ash, it's
very similar to those are no sheep's bones.
Remember the same thing when when that woman brings the man
brings the burn, burn bones of her his daughter that was killed
by Drogan, The embarrassment says those are no sheep's bones.
It's like both times it's like, no, that's a child.
Yeah, different reasoning, but similar vibe and not to mention
the others themselves kind of make it in a sense that no, if
they're active, no one beyond the wall can truly be free.
If they're coming in the night and either attacking you or
demanding sacrifice or it's no different than like living under
a mafia boss. Like your village is taken over
by the mafia and they demand and expect all these things.
You have your protection, but like at any at any moment they
can on their whim, they can come in and take things from you and
you have absolutely nothing to do about it.
I mean the same is true for any authority to some extent, but
that's why we in the real world hope that our authorities have
checks and balances put on them. You know they don't always, but
that's why we do, that's why we want that.
There's no check and balance against crafters lies and
enslavement of these. That's the problem with living
free is there's no like structure to.
You make certain sacrifices in liberty for the sake of
security, right? And that's hopefully what a good
government is balancing properly.
But this is a sacrifice in liberty for not security.
You're still not secure if your children have to be sacrificed,
right? Yeah, the basic things we say
right. Life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. Do they have any?
They have life, but they don't have liberty or the pursuit of
happiness. They have one of those things.
Yeah, especially as a mother. Like having your knowing like
okay 5050, this child that I'm pregnant with is going to be
sacrificed. He's the other fifty, yeah, by
the way, Enslaved and raped. The other.
Yeah. And married, quote, UN quote
married. Yeah.
So it's a real mockery of good institutions, the way Craster
sort of spins them and has the enough isolation from society
for these lies to work. Like if you were, if there was a
town square these women were visiting every day, they would
hear these other ideas and hear how other women were treated,
and they'd be like, actually, the world isn't the way, Crafter
says. Which is why Crafter's always
like no one even talks to them. He doesn't even let that.
He doesn't want people. They can't chase them, but he
really doesn't want them to have any contact at all.
He doesn't want them to even speak.
He doesn't want these, his lies undone.
He doesn't want alternative viewpoints being put into their
minds. None of that.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power and his His
power over them relies on their lack of knowledge.
Yeah, without that it falls apart.
Like, even to the idea of like, being a slave.
They probably don't know what that means.
They don't understand. It's it's like telling a child
that you're going to burn in hell if you commit a sin.
Like, what is hell? Like, they might know what burn
means, but they just don't. It's just a bad thing.
You just know it's a bad thing that you're supposed to avoid.
So I won't commit a sin. Okay.
What are the sins? Whatever you're told is the sin.
You just see what I'm saying. They're totally pretty
arbitrary. And so the behavior that he
wants, in a way he's kind of like Melisandre, or even more
like Uron, someone who exaggerates and or distorts what
they know about the supernatural for mysterious ends, shall we
say. In the Uron's case, it's really
a lot very even more similar because Melisandre is not
looking for her own ends, specifically not that she
thinks, but she is under a belief system and she is acting
under based on God's she believes are harsh and demanding
and must be appeased or. The world ends or whatever.
So it's similar kind of thing except she actually wants to
save the world and things like that.
Obviously there. But you can see the similarity.
Obviously I'm not saying Craster just like Melisandre, but you're
on. There's a lot more parallel
because you're on is specifically trying to mislead
people about the supernatural for just personal gain to
advance his own ends. He's obviously is a lot more
ambitious than Craster, but he's also like misrepresenting the
gods. Your Hunt very much does this.
And creepy attitudes towards women.
He's a rapper and a slaver and doesn't really have morals.
And yeah, so yeah, Girl and Crastra have a lot in common.
Even though Asandra, like sometimes she's deceitful, but
when she's deceitful, she like, you know, starts to fly a fire
with powder and it's not really magic.
When Crass is deceitful, he murders a baby right?
Like it needs to be fair. Melisandra wanted to burn babies
too. She wanted to burn Gendry and.
And even when she wanted to do that, she genuinely believes,
however crazy it may seem. But she thinks that she's saving
the realm, or saving the soldiers, or saving the world,
even she has. She's not trying to, like,
preserve her incestuous life, right?
She's doing something she believes for the greater She's
making sacrifices too, Even though the sacrifices she
demands might be dishonest, might be misleading.
She's not. She's kind of putting her money
where her mouth is. And she's demanding them from.
People who aren't gas slips. Yeah, she Stannis isn't tricked
into knowing what a child is or something.
He understands what's at stake and what's being asked if she
has misled him. Women don't.
But you're right. But he has way more information.
Like, yeah, he's not half as naive as bachelor's wives
because they he hasn't lived in a Hut, be on the wall all his
life with no other people around like.
Yeah. Is that a judgment on the wives?
No, of course not. It's a judgment on Craster to
make them. He is.
Yeah, he's forced this ignorance on.
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to get a great education, be on the wall
anyway, but yeah, but he's made it even worse.
So here's an interesting .1 of Craster's wives.
Here's the story they're talking about the whites, the castle,
black Awthor and Jaffer flowers rising in the night and you
know, Lord Commander's quarters getting burned and John getting
long claws. His reward?
That's interesting. They've seen the others, as far
as we know, but she seems to she reacts very strongly to hearing
about the whites. So she seemed it's quite
possible she's seen the others but not the whites, which is
That's interesting. Alternately, Nina says maybe
she's not so much shocked at the idea of the whites exist as
worried about the implications of that report.
Like, wait, you're telling me the Others are acting?
Operating, Raising the dead on the other side of the wall?
Infiltrating the Lord Commander's Tower at the Nights
Watch? You're telling me they've done
that? That's only going to make her
more scared of like, OK, yeah. Crashed.
We got. Yeah.
More sacrifice crap like that's that is alarming.
You hear that? The organization devoted to
fighting the Others, their Commander's Tower was assaulted
by the Others. Like the Wall.
I guess it's supposed to keep them out.
Like what went wrong? What does that even mean?
Oh, crap, like that's bad. It's.
Verification, like the little bit of knowledge that Crasher
has given them, That is true. That's the scariest thing they
now have verification for. Yeah, right.
And so it makes them believe everything else he says.
It makes the thing that that he's they're supposed to be
scared of. They really are scared of it.
And yeah, yeah, it's bad. Like the logic, they they follow
the logical train here. They're like OK so the others
are already attacking Castle Black but they've continuously
they still have left Crasher's keep alone that's yeah.
Like you said that's going to make them think Craster tell him
the truth like Yep. Or at least he's doing the the
something that works to keep the others at Bay or away because
they've bypassed Craster's key for some from a much tougher
southerly target. You know.
So John is skeptical at first that they've seen the others
because Craster says he hasn't seen them claims to have not
seen them which as we've said before is probably a lie.
And here's the result of that dialogue when John quizzes
Killing Quote. What color are their eyes?
He asked her. Blue, as bright as blue stars
and as cold. She has seen them, he thought.
Presser lied, very, very much wondering what context she saw
them. Did she witness them collect a
sacrifice? Did she like the pointing thing
that Sean talking about? Anything remotely like that
happened. Some rudimentary attempted
communication. Were they on foot?
Were they riding horses? Ice spiders?
Some other animal, were they? I mean, if Gilly had seen them,
Gilly's like the one of the youngest, if not the youngest of
the wives. So that means the others have
two. The others have seen the others
too. Yeah.
See, the show changed the name others because it gets a little
confusing in discussion. When you're reading it, it's not
confusing at all because it's always capitalized.
But I kind of see why they did that.
Every time we talk about it, it's like, yeah, I get it.
I get it. I still think it's possible that
Gilly hasn't seen them, that she was just told that their eyes
are blue. But still someone else had to
see them to know that their eyes are blue.
So, so maybe that is the groomer about them.
But but John has seen them or seen the the whites.
He hasn't seen the others. Well, he hadn't at that point.
This is before the 5th of the first man, all that works out
differently. So I agree with you.
It's absolutely possible that she's just repeating what she's
been told and it happens to be correct.
So the story passes muster another interesting thing to
remember though, they don't leave footprints.
So it's not like that that was them.
Like it's not like crashing points of footprints.
Say that was them that came and and lie.
Although he could just pretend and say that was them and it was
just some other footprints. But if they've seen them face to
face, then you don't need to tell any stories like well there
you go, they've seen them. That's that's all the scaring I
need to do. Now I just take that fear and
and manipulate it for my own ends look.
He might even make sure they see him right, like to make sure he
wants to keep. And it, yeah.
And it. And again, it adds to why they
don't move against him. He he needs to make them believe
that this is for some. I'm the only thing standing in
between you and them. Yeah, that's it's fear works,
man. It really does work.
And then let's remind ourselves of what they look like.
Here's another time where you really got to put the show out
of your mind. This is what George said about
them. Strange.
Beautiful. Think.
Oh, the the she made of ice. Something like that.
A different sort of life. Inhuman.
Elegant. Dangerous To be fair, George has
struggled to describe them when he's described them to artists.
We've we've read the takes of artists who have described the
others in detail, and a lot of them are like, George is good at
describing what they aren't, but he's not as good as telling what
they are. Yeah, it's been a real struggle
for authors. Like a lot of the authors, I
mean, artists, renditions of them.
I'm like, they look awesome, but I'm like, I'm not sure that's
right. I don't know that they have hair
and they're very often portrayed as having hair.
I'm not sure that they do, but they're just made.
They're kind of human likes, but inhuman.
But human the. Only thing I've seen designs to
make them like, their hair is kind of like white flame, you
know what I mean? Have you seen that like art,
like that or like it looks kind of like a human would see it as
hair, but it's not hair. It's absolutely not actually
hair. Just like has the like
appearance almost of hair. But it is a difference.
I don't know. I've seen things like that.
I can see that that's. And that's why different artist
interpretations, like they just got to do something.
They got to think of something cool and be imaginative with it.
And I'm like that. That's cool, that's cool.
I like that. I like that.
But they're all kind of guessing, you know, George is
going to have to narrow it down a little more when when they're
they're on screen a little more, you know, more prominent people.
I tried to Google seed. Hey, I don't know if I'm saying
that word right, but it's like she oh, I even know that I I
learned that's like an Irish phonetic, Irish Scottish.
That's followed by a vow of SH. But anyway, yeah, that in itself
is just this huge diversity. It's hard to really get anything
from that. It's.
Sort of like an elf. But think of how many different
ways elves have been presented. You know, the the Fay is a huge
category, all the different, very fairy like beings.
And the different versions of them, Yeah, there's so many
different versions of it, you're right.
Like some of them are like tall and big and broad shoulder
barrel chest and muscular with like goat legs and some of them
are like skinny and tiny little fairies on a flower.
Like, that's the range. You know.
Like it's it's hard to really get too much on it.
Giant range. You're right.
And but a lot of versions of she steal children.
So that is part of where George is coming from with that.
I think that's that's the. Lord, at least, But not the
look, Not yes, the Lord, but not the look absolutely, he says.
The others are certainly taking a good amount of inspiration
from tropes of evil fairies. Evil fairies, not just good
ones, right? More so.
They are inherently inhuman, and they can't be effectively
negotiated with by humans or live on even terms of humans.
You can leave out offerings for fairies, you can avoid fairy
places, you can make all the right defenses you want.
But sometimes evil fairies just mess with you because that's
what they do, and these are more powerful than the regular evil
fears. These are more God like, even
though they're not gods, I don't think Grasser calls them that
because it's semantics, something that's that much more
powerful than you. Like are we gods to ants?
It is a way that he can get away with quote, UN quote lines.
Yes, that's true. Exaggerating the power makes him
seem more important, you know. Or or using a different word,
right. Just using a different word and
and he really believes it or gets the people around him to
believe it, but it's really a different thing.
He's just using a different word than what most people think.
That's crossed my mind too with the Vengeance Stark that he
might have seen a white version of Benjin, but he he can
honestly say no. I didn't see him because that's
not really Benjin, that's a white, but that would have been
good information for the white Knights Watch but.
It's not information they want to hear or whatever.
Maybe the others don't want him to tell or something, but it's a
way he might have seen him be dead white or otherwise might
have seen his dead body. That's not him anymore, you
know. I haven't seen him in three
years. Yeah like going back to your
your point about not checking in with crafters, there another I
just I did think of another reason that maybe they got a
lead on where he might where to where to check before they got
to crafters and followed that lead which took them a different
direction. Still I don't believe that he
hasn't seen hasn't seen Benji in three years.
That's just Benji would have passed that way many times.
Yeah, even your angle, which supports my proposition, I can
counter that too. When they double check with
Christ, there's still a check once they random leave because
once that that led to a dead end, they would be like okay,
well that didn't pay off. We got to yeah.
Or or even if it was a crack, even if they got a leave from
somewhere else of where Mance was and it was true and correct.
It's a long freaking way away. How long are they going to
travel there without some verification, right?
It's it's literally a life risking journey.
Maybe we get crashed or to back it up, you know.
So jumping far ahead, it's just something I think about as as
like a later topic or something that hopefully will happen.
Sam needs to write down what he's seen.
He's that's a set it all. He needs to put that stuff down
for posterity. But Gilly, like they don't know
what a treasure they have. With Gilly there in Old Town,
she has seen some stuff more than Sam has for sure.
Everything Sam has seen, she has seen because she was there with
him when they bought small Paul and the Ravens were there and
cold hands came like she was there for all that and she was
there. Grass.
There's her whole life before that for whatever else was
whatever else went down she could spill some tea all and
that that belongs in the history book.
So definitely hope that happens something like that.
But that's that's dreaming ahead.
Let's stick with more in the in the present.
Another piece of evidence comes from the last line in the
chapter where the mutiny occurs. So that's a storm of sorts.
Here's Gilly talking to Sam. If you don't take him, they
will. They said.
Sam and the Raven cocked its blackhead and echoed.
They, they. They.
The boys brothers, said The old woman on the left, Craster's
sons. The white colds rising out there
crow. I can feel it in my bones.
These poor old bones don't lie. They'll be here soon.
The Suns, that's what I was saying.
Like they know how to tell the difference between the cult
types of cold. And they kind of have a sense of
these, how often it's like it's been a while since they've come.
It's about time they show up again and demand another
sacrifice. Like they have a sense of this
frequency. And yeah, the Daughters became
crashers otherwise, And according to her, they become
the others themselves. The the sun.
So now here's a there's a perception in the in the fan.
This is another thing the show has done.
That's the throwing things off a little bit.
Every other appeared to be male in the show.
There is no evidence that's the case in the books.
None whatsoever. Except maybe this helps fuel
that belief, this thing that's crashed giving his sons away.
But I personally don't think the others are turning his sons into
new others. It's absolutely possible.
I think there's a decent chance of it, but I think it's just
regular old death. They're sack, they like young
life. They consume it somehow and
that's it. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, it
makes you wonder, like, how many would there be?
Like, there's a lot of logistical questions about the
act of turning a baby into an adult other.
And like, can they do that? I mean, they had to make new
others somehow. I don't know if they know how to
make that. Maybe the children made new
others. And the others can reproduce
themselves. They have to know how to make
new others still. Like could there have been an X
number? Let's say there were two hundred
others created way back when. And now they're down to 20 and
they're not making new others. Like, do we know, I don't know
that we think they have to know how to make new others and they
have lost the way to procreate. Yeah, I think they could just
have. They could have been created and
never been able to procreate. And this is just they're all
there on their last leg. The last, the last few.
Even. That's possible.
It's entirely possible they might be.
It's an interesting thing. Maybe they're searching for ways
to procreate. Yeah, maybe they don't know how,
and they're trying. They're trying to re unearth
lost lore on how to propagate their species.
That would be very interesting, having just returned from
wherever after so long. They don't know what their
compadres do thousands of years ago.
Baby Crash is a genius and he's saving the world.
I had thought a second ago. Listen when you when you said a
second ago that there's no real evidence that there are only
male others, that there's no evidence that they're even male,
right? They might be genderless, they
might be 100% and so. Given that, if they're
researching how to procreate and Crestor only gives them males,
so they'll never figure out how it works if I give them, you
want a. Baby, I'm yeah, I'm misleading
them. Y'all.
I'm dumb. The good guy here.
I totally tricked them into No, it's interesting.
You're right. I I have that in the notes here
too. Like, there's no reason to think
they have any. Like if you're designing, if
you're building a robot for the purpose of stacking boxes, you
don't assign it a gender like it's not.
It's not relevant to its existence.
Yeah, You don't make it so that it can procreate and have babies
either. So the same thing with the
others, like why would they even have, I mean, I'm not saying
they don't because there's you might because they might be,
they might be converted people, they might be ex humans.
So they would maybe maintain the gender they had when they were
transformed. They might not have gender
either, but they might still have what is effectively a
gender identity for other things too, like they might take on
certain roles in their cultures. There's a split between them and
it's like not what a human male, female.
Sex difference would be, but they could still have Like these
others are the warrior class and these others are the you know,
the ones we saw kill Waymar are like the Rangers of the.
Yeah, and that could be effectively split on like
culturally in other ways. It's it doesn't have to just be
the same human dichotomy. Agree.
Totally agree. There's no reason to assume
human dichotomy here. The show and like I said, the
show really threw it off because they portrayed every child of
the forest is female and every other is male, which is like,
it's possible George told them they were all male, but there's
no. But I really doubt that because
there's no way he told them all the children in the forest were
female because that's explicitly not, we've seen male children in
the forest. So that part's not true.
So I kind of doubt this whole thing from the show.
I think we can kind of just toss it.
Yeah. And how would you be able to
tell, like, even if they do have gender, like, how do you
identify the, the, the gender of a fairy species?
Like, like, it's not the same. You don't look for the same
things. Like, do you have?
It's like the Barbie movie. Like no, we don't have, we have
parts. You can't say there's nothing
down there. Y'all.
They're just, they're all Kens. Yeah, the others are Kens.
Notice how all meta this is not the Barbie stuff.
I mean, they're just like Lords great and small, coming around
and taking all the boys to go off to war.
And sometimes they come back with their they're changed, like
they're traumatized and they're no longer that sweet boy you
knew. There's some hardened killer
that's seen some shit and been through some shit.
It's very similar. I mean, George is George is a
lot. George says he's not writing an
antiwar novel, but there's a lot of antiwar stuff in there.
You could the themes are there. He shows that how destructive it
is and how the cycle of violence plays out.
It's true even in this supernatural setting or or
viewpoint. If you give them sons for their
armies, they will be appeased. Or so says Crafts.
Maybe it only takes animals, maybe.
Maybe sheep are enough. Maybe they have to be male
sheep. Aha.
But of course you do have a chance of returning from war, I
guess. But as I said, often you're a
very different person afterwards.
But this no, no chance at all of returning.
Like if you give your son, your baby child, to the others,
there's no coming back from that at all.
There is no even, not even a little bit.
And unless you come back as another, which is still even
more changed than the traumatized war veteran Nina
says there's a certain level of rights that W rossy smallfolk
have or are supposed to have given the system.
You know, it doesn't always work out that way.
Yes, Westerosi feudalism is a deeply unfair and classist
system, but the basic formula is that in return for the taxes and
services provided by the small folk, the aristocratic class
will protect the small folk in times of danger.
Obviously this does not always work out in practice, but it's
also not the case at all. Westerosi aristocrats are simply
hard hearted villains who treat the peasantry as their personal
property. It's usually somewhere in
between. Like Ed, Muir is a good example
of someone who tried pretty darn hard to protect his people,
whereas someone like Tywin spends them, is like coins, you
know, like a life is just another type of resource to him,
another thing to be spent for his benefit or his house's
benefit. And the Starks maintain the
winter town as a way to protect people from the cold in the
winter. So there's there's certainly
some good examples out there. The others, by contrast, don't
seem to. There's no return.
There's only we won't kill you. There's no benefit given back
just other than you won't die. Yeah.
So this is Ken slang. Of course, if you give away your
children, that's Ken slang. Pretty straightforward.
We've mentioned that way back at the beginning.
Dywin said it. Dywin was right.
You're giving away your own children.
That's, that's Ken Slang. So let's talk about, let's talk
a little about the John angle here that the watch puts up with
this, this arrangement. It's really tough for John to
deal with this. He's really struggling with the
morality of this quote. You knew.
Smallwood told me long ago. All the Rangers know, though few
will talk of it. Did my uncle know?
All the Rangers, Mormont repeated.
John can't really do much about it though.
He's a steward of the Lord Commander.
What's he going to do? The best he can do is say I'm
not sleeping under this roof. He can only exercise this in his
own purview. He can't really make anyone else
do it. By the time he becomes Lord
Commander, well, crafter's dead anyway, and John has no business
going to that part of the world at this point.
He's got bigger problems. Interesting that Mormont learned
it from Lauren Smallwood, but as we said earlier, Smallwood it's
a highly experienced Ranger. He's probably slept the crafters
keep a dozen times or something and then he's a Ranger.
I mean, he'd be like I said, he became acting 1st Ranger when
bench advantage. I don't know that that it hits
me really hard this moment. This real is Jason that John has
because he looks up the bench and he think John is, as you
said, he has a strong sense of justice.
He's trying hard to do the right thing.
Thought it was the right thing to do to go to the wall.
It's uncle went to the wall. He wants to believe that he also
has a strong sense. And Benjamin probably does have
a strong sense of justice. But in the end, in the reality
of the world, and I'm going to say in this part of the world
which is built around conflict, justice just can't live there.
You know what I mean? That Benjamin knew it too.
And for John to realize that is, it's a tough.
Wake up call like it was a tough wake up call for him to just get
into the wall and realizing the reality of it was very different
than what he thought. But still inside he was like,
okay. Well, the wall isn't what I
thought, but justice is still important, right?
My uncle is still a good man, right?
Maybe not. Maybe not.
He's wrestling with that. He's like, well, maybe he is.
Maybe he. Maybe if Vengeant had to do it,
maybe it's no, yeah, it's really maybe I have to do it too.
And right now it doesn't want to.
And again, maybe Benjin. Or the Wall have this bigger
purpose. I think that was a quote
somewhere else to where they maybe I'm just thinking about
that when when Mormont tells them that our our war is more
important than Rob's. You know the the idea of this
existential threat to humanity isn't as important as who's king
right now. You know.
And maybe an existential threat to humanity isn't as important
as this guy murdering and raping his own family members.
Like you know it's a tough to believe that could be a scenario
in the world, right. And usually in the real world
that's not a scenario. But in this fantastic world,
that's the scenario that's been set up for John.
And it's still tough for even if he does get clear evidence that
we have to accept Crasser to save every other human on the
planet, it's still a tough thing to accept.
Because it's not how he's raised on what his sense of justice
looks like. It's just, yeah, it's complete
turn around from from a lot of his values.
Not the identity he thought that his family had either.
But we do see him too. We do see him making concessions
to morality later, like he becomes Lord Commander and what
does he do? He does the baby swap.
He makes Gilly leave her baby behind like that.
This John Clash of Kings John would would have bought that
unthinkable. Yeah, I think but but Clash of
King John was Steward, not Lord Commander.
Clash of King John hadn't gone beyond the Wall and lived with
Gilly and lived with the free folk and saw Corn Halfhand die
and all these other things shot and saw innocent people die.
All these like John has changed a lot since since these times,
but he still has that sense of justice.
But he's a little more worldly and you know, at least his
corner of the world, which does work differently than most of
the rest of Westeros for a lot of reasons.
By the way, it's a similar parallel I made to to Stannis.
Like the idea of Stannis burning a child or Melisandre, like,
right. But when there is this in this
fantastic world where there really is magic and there really
is this existential threat, at what point do you, I don't know,
forego that moral to save the world, you know?
Yeah. That's a really tough question,
Speaking of someone who is willing to do things that may
not have been moral for perhaps the greater good.
The Raven is always there. All these conversations John has
with Mormon, that raven's always there saying, you know, like
we've quoted it a bunch of times.
Like both Asheya and Sean have done.
A very good Raven voice today. Yeah, fun.
So it's that's quite possibly Blood Ravens hearing all this
stuff going. Yep.
Nope. Nope.
Like, God Crestor, you guys like again with this guy, you know?
He's just, like, so frustrated sitting in his tree, like
someone chop that guy's head off.
Maybe not. Maybe he's like, yeah, they got
to do what they got to do. I get it.
Craster claims the Whites and
others will not attack his key because he's right with the
gods. And yeah, like we've been saying
it throughout the episode, the evidence does seem to appear to
be true. The others do seem to leave him
alone because of the sacrament. Leave his.
Property alone because of these sacrifices, though, it's not
really left alone, is it? If someone's coming by demanding
sacrifices, and if now, as we've said, Craster might be the one
choosing the sacrifices sons, he may not be giving them up the
because he really thinks he has to.
He's just telling that to his wives.
Either way, that's not being left alone.
If someone's coming and demanding your stuff, it's not
being left alone like they're they're not going to come kill
you. But that's not the same as
leaving you alone. They are, absolutely.
Definitively not leaving you alone, but they are not killing
you. So that's definitely an
important demand. And there's a lot of that here,
isn't. There's a lot of language used,
manipulative language or semantics used by Craster to to
justify his existence, or to deflect criticism from the
Nights Watch or from this and that, or just to establish who
he is. So yeah, that's a really
important point about Craster. He has no.
Power. It's not a partnership.
It's not an arrangement. It's it's you're taking
something for me to leave me alone.
You see me as like a resource, a recurring resource.
Like you come threaten me. Get something out of it.
You're not killing me because you'd rather have that recurring
thing than a one time take what you have and then that's it.
Like a yeah, you're you're like a tree that bears repeated
fruit. Like, why chop down the tree
that every year gives you more stuff.
So that's what Craster is. Craster keeps giving them.
And not fruit, but people and sheep and dogs.
And yeah, like Fessa sends super chat and says walkers would need
a base nearby so babies don't freeze before collection unless
they don't need them alive or it's a chance.
It's not that the White Walkers taking them.
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I still think the White
Walkers are taking them because they've been seen by apparently
been seen by guilty. But there is room for something
else that they're just crashers leaving them out there and
that's not what's happening. So just animals are taking them
away, and Crasher blamed it on the White Walkers.
The problem with that is that they're they feel them coming
like that that type of cold that they can tell is different, like
there's I. The presence of them seems to be
legitimate, even if the arrangement is too much of this
crafter's own description. I suppose there's a lot to play
with here, because this is a reasonable logistic point to
bring up, you know? So maybe the walkers do appear
periodically when the babies come, but maybe also they have
some minion that collects the baby and cares for it, you know?
Yeah. Or maybe they have super fast
horses or some sort of teleportation or tunnel system.
Or is all kinds of things. Yeah, maybe they can control the
temperature even though they have this cold aura about them.
Maybe they can minimize the cold or to keep the baby alive or
something like that. Yeah, maybe they feed on it, or
maybe they just don't need them alive.
Maybe they immediately consume the baby's life, energy, or
whatever. Kind of like Melisandre making a
spirit of a shadow. Baby from Stannis and made him
look older the next day, consuming a part of them.
Yeah, it's like that's a they're feeding on a similar type of
energy, the shadow that creates the same shadow energy that that
can be formed into a assassin and also be consumed by other
magical beings perhaps. I mean, those babies are shadow
creatures and the others are shadow creatures.
There might even be some sort of might fit into our grand magical
overlap theory that they're similar.
Sorcery is used to create similar tapped energy within the
a similar rift in the dimensions has let them both through, or
whatever we. Lack the right language for it,
but I like that, just I like that.
The rift, dimensional rift or something, yeah, they're pulled
through with sorceress energy and yeah, that's why they don't
quite fit in this world, because they're not from it.
George James says the Knights king slash corpse queen story
hints that at the very least there have been female others in
the past and there have been stories of, you know, female
others. I mean while half human children
others and you know, siring mating with others.
By the way, it's a kind of a reversal that Old Man says the
wildlings kidnap women on the South side of the wall in order
to give them to the others, which is probably not true, but
it's kind of interesting in that it's the opposite of a crafter
doing. It's like Crafter says.
Oh, they want the sons, but according to Old Man, they want
the women, Which maybe it is. Either and just some people
think an old man says they're taking women and the while she
associates the wildlings with the others.
So those are connected but and grastors made-up the sun's thing
to for his own ends too. So maybe there's been a change
in what the others want, right? Maybe it's connected to the red
comment or although the red comment just now got here.
Seems like crackers has been doing this for a while, but
that's true. But but anyway, you can see that
maybe at different times the others had different demands of
humans and it connected to these other rises and magic.
They want babies instead of sheep, male babies instead of
female babies, whatever. We need we need stronger energy
to make our comeback. The sheep are just barely
keeping us alive. Let's talk about Craster's death
and a few other related topics. The first time we see Craster,
it's John's POV, though Sam is there.
The second time we see Craster at Sam's POV, not only is John
not there, but Sam thinks John is dead.
Let's go back to before this though for a little funny slash
foreshadowy line from Dollar said quote.
Give the Wildling an axe. Why not?
He pointed out Mormont's weapon, a short half battle axe with
gold scroller inlaid on the black steel blade.
He'll give it back, I vow. Buried in the Old Bear's skull
like it's not. Not quite, but in the
neighborhood it wasn't. That's not quite what happened,
but Crasher was holding the axe, getting ready to swing it in.
Dirk. Before Alo grabbed him from
behind and cut. No, actually was thinking the
other way around. He was going for aloe and Dirk
cut him. Yeah, Dirk killed him.
That's right. And by the way, that axe sounds
pretty sweet. It sounds kind of like the the
cracks and axe from TV. Gold black with gold scroll
work. Yeah, sounds cool.
So he is. Yeah, he's holding that axe
threateningly. Mormont suggests the name
answered. Prayer for the acts like you
said earlier, Sean. But only in the context of if
Crafter's, one of Crafter's wives, uses it to kill him while
he's passed out drunk, which he is at that moment when when
Mormon sisters like we gave him wine, which he likes, he doesn't
have access to much of that. He's passed out.
Like there is no way he's going to stop you.
You could absolutely kill him right now, but of course they
won't, because they're convinced that they're doomed without him.
They're convinced they're doomed without his sacrifices.
We're not actually sure what happened to that ax.
I'm curious, but it probably ended up with one of the
mutineers hopefully killed. Because most of those mutineers
were killed. And Nina says this axe is also a
little symbolic of the attitude of this towards this passive
evil that the Knights Watch has to put up with in order to
perhaps survive. I mean that's it's like we said,
it's been the difference between life and death sometimes,
according to certain Rangers. Anyway, Marma will give the
weapon and alcohol to Craster and speak about how the women
should kill him, but he won't actually do it himself.
Old tradition of Craster is a friend of the Watch Outweighs
that and not to mention his own beliefs and guests, right like
Mormont is legitimately mortified when Craster is
killed. He's like, Oh my God, the gods
will curse us like he's not like, oh, this is a bad thing.
You should have done that. Now he's like he it's like a
moment of belief like he's devout like has.
This is a really sincere belief he holds, and it's set up by a
couple other comments he makes about the gods earlier.
Like when they're a white tree, he says.
My Lord father believed you couldn't tell a lie in front of
a heart tree, and John says my father believed the same.
It's like these things. This sets up Mormont being
sincere and truly believing these things that he's saying
about guest right, which is goes a long way towards explaining
why he won't intervene. That doesn't necessarily make it
okay, but like it's hard to go against deeply held religious
beliefs, it brings out questions about guest right?
If I go to your house one time, you offer me food, I eat it, and
I leave. When I come back to your house
the next time, is it the same deal or can I, you know, like it
seems like you should show up, not accept his food and chop his
head off with an axe, not worry about the guess the right thing?
Yeah, Nina says. Not only does Mormont recognize
the insidious layers of abuse crashers inflicted on these
women, not only are they physically assaulted by Crasher
on a regular basis, but they have been raised to believe that
they are pariahs to both the other free folk and the Nights
Watch, and that's the only thing standing between them and
destructive. God is crash or something.
They're presented. He tells them that no one else
will take them in also. Not only that, he's the only one
to protect them, but they have nowhere else to go.
And that part's at least somewhat true.
Not for Gilly, as it turns out, thankfully.
But when it all breaks down, like those other eighteen women
are left there for their own devices with the worst of the
remaining Knights Watch. And they had a horrible fate.
Most like the Knights watch did not save them.
They saved one of them and the child, and under unusual
circumstances, yes. Under different circumstances,
Gilly would not have necessarily been accepted at the Wall or
elsewhere. That's very, very true.
Yeah, you're right. Ed also in as part of his
conversation, joke said it's a good thing Crasser will be given
wine because, well, at least he's less dangerous when drunk.
That's a one few positive things, as he, Ed can point out.
Positive things. He's not all dolorous all the
time, but just most of the time. But it turns out being relaxed
and drunk turned around when he was.
Triggered, he became kind of reckless.
I mean, I don't know. He goes to recap.
Remember he some of the survivors get mad at crafter for
holding back food. Crasher gets mad in return at
their lack of respect for his generosity.
He doesn't have to give them anything.
He gets mad and kicks out the ones who insulted him.
He's very specific. He's like you insulted me.
You. The rest you can stay.
You didn't say anything, like he doesn't treat them as a
monolith, but then one of them calls him bastard and that that
really bothers him because he is 1 but he hates being called
that. So that's.
By the way, why we said it's important to know that he's a
bastard because it triggered him here.
And that means those other times when it comes up, when he's make
that comment to John about being a bastard and how Nance is a
bastard now he's one, it's, it's a touchy subject for him and
he's drunk. So it's more weight to it than
you might realize. Yeah, but then we do realize.
Yeah, then we do realize that so he he loses temper.
He sweeps the food off the table, grabs the axe, jumps over
the table and goes after clubs with Carl.
Then Dirk grabs him from behind. Cuts his throat.
Mormon is horrified. All hell breaks loose, Nina
says. Let's be clear.
Crashed was barely, if at all, following the strictures of
guest right. He was giving them food, but a
really tiny amount. It was like he was technically
helping them, but he was trying to do the minimum.
At bare minimum is the right way to put it.
I I even want to maybe give some credit to the fact that he does
have couple dozen people there that he needs to have food for
and he can't let 50 soldiers show up and eat his winter
results. Yeah, that is true.
Yeah. There, there's some, on some
level you got to say, yeah, he's, he's got to say he does
have to save enough food for himself.
And it is going to be a look. Looks like a nasty winter.
Those are facts, I think. Yeah, here's another thing too
though. This idea that crafters never
turned away someone from the Nights Watch and so he's their
friend. Do they have to give him wine
and an axe every time? What if they didn't give him the
wine and axe, but he turned him away the next time?
Maybe, You know, Is it your generosity or is it?
Is he getting something from the nice?
Watch for this. Are they?
They're get so incidentally contributing to Crasser's
scenario. You're right, because he's
profiting, basically paying him each time, yeah.
This is and this is what he does.
This is, this is how he profits from his arrangement with the
others. It's even though it's an awful
thing. Like who would try seek a profit
from this? Well, this guy would.
Yeah, he's profiting from guest writing.
These are things you're supposed to give freely, but he basically
demands these. If these gifts aren't given
that, he probably wouldn't do it, you know, Now that's to be
fair, those are also, you're supposed to give gifts to your
host. That is part of it.
They gave him a crossbow some prior visit, we're we're told.
And the crossbow is real valuable.
Like super valuable. So anyway, he also points out
The Who drew steel first? It was Craster.
Craster is the one who picked his axe up Like that guy called
him a bastard, but he didn't, like, draw his dagger and call
him a bastard. He just killed that insult.
Rude. But Craster drew steel first.
Yeah, the penalty for rudeness shouldn't be death.
Yeah. Guest right.
The the, the rules of guest right or not don't include
rudeness. I mean you're supposed to be.
Yeah. Not bring murder into their
home. You know these other things it's
pretty yeah rudeness is not quite doesn't quite rise to that
level like we should. You should be.
Gracious to your host, but maybe not every host.
And then, of course, once hell breaks loose, they treat
everything as theirs, including the women.
It's a bit ironic for a man who considers himself so godly,
someone who sacrifices to the others to be killed by the
Night's Watch, the eternal foe of the Others and the ones that
bothered him. I mean, come on, man, you crows
are fighting the wrong evils here.
Like, yeah, crashed was bad but. She's dropping right down to his
level with some stuff. I mean, you just go do the same
things that we're all saying or wrong, like raping his women.
Like that's the thing that is wrong.
Like, come on, don't do that. Jeez, but these are the worst
members of the nights Watch. These are the guys.
Some of these are the same ones that were planning on murdering
their brothers to escape. Several of these guys were the
coconspirators with Chet, and they all had a person they were
going to murder. Now maybe Crasser was so
reckless and charging hollow because.
Maybe it's probably because he was drunk and confident.
Maybe he just really thought he was immune because of guess
right. He's like, no, this Shirley the
Knights watch won't do this. You know, he just got a little,
got a little arrogant, got a little ahead of himself there
with that and all these. Like he knew how bad these
people are. We don't know where Dirk is
from, by the way. I would guess not from the
North. I would guess that he would
maybe not have been so willing to do that if he was from the
North, but maybe he was. Them and the other eight, eight
of the other rogue nights watch, stay at crafters.
They're the ones who steal the food and do all that awful stuff
to the women. One of them dies like right
away, falling out of a the the cellar, trying to climb up.
There he falls and breaks his neck.
I kind of hope one of the women knocked him down and he I I
would prefer that to being. Slipping, but we don't know.
And Cold Hands kills five more of them later.
And then of course, Brandon, Mira, and Jojan eat them
unwillingly and unknowingly. But hey.
It's another example of can't have as many morals.
When you're dying, you know you got to eat, right?
I don't know if Dirk was one of the five killed by cold hands.
It would be really appropriate though, if he was killed by an
agent of the old Gods after violating guest rights so
brutally. That would be fitting, wouldn't
it? Wouldn't it?
Indeed, yes, yes it would. As we work our way towards the
end of the episode. We're not quite there, but
here's a great. Part that I alluded to the
beginning. Nina wrote us a couple
paragraphs about parallels between The Song of Ice and Fire
and Fever Dream. Now.
Fever Dream, as I said at the beginning, is set in 1857 along
the Mississippi River and around New Orleans in the US.
It's great book, vampire novel, and in the story the vampires
fall into two very distinct groups.
While some very vampires want a positive relationship with
humans where they don't feed on them, other vampires call human
beings cattle and consider them their natural prey.
And by the way, this was written in 1982, so.
More than 10 years before he even started hung Weiss Empire.
But as we're going to see in this, in this description, and
right up in Nunes made here, there are parallels.
If some of that sounds like George was thinking about these
vampires, particularly the sinister half, the ones that see
them as cattle, as inspiration for the others, well, yeah, here
we go. Like the others, the vampires of
Fever Dream are uniformly pale and inhumanly beautiful.
Like the others, the vampires move with an unnatural
quietness, grace and elegance. Like the others, the vampires
are far stronger physically than humans.
Like the others, the vampires cannot exist in daylight.
All these things are fairly normal for vampires, but you may
not have noticed how similar that is to the others.
What does all this have to do with Craster, though you might
be asking? Well, that question is answered
by the secondary antagonist of Fever Dream, a man called Sour
Billy Tipton. In the In the novel, Billy
served as an overseer on a plantation that the evil group
of vampires moved on to and eventually took over.
The novel makes it pretty clear that Billy was already a bad
guy. More the vampires ever moved in,
and he certainly had no problem being an abusive enforcer of
slavery on the plantation. However, once the vampires take
control of the plantation, Billy becomes what the novel calls a
Thrall. We've all do you know anything
about vampires? The term Thrall is nothing new.
Or might you or what you might also call familiar, which you
probably have also heard, like Guillermo and What We Do in the
Shadows. He's a familiar, but in other
contexts you might have been called a Thrall.
Anyway, we got to mix a little humor in here because this stuff
is pretty dark. When the vampires want to feast
on an enslaved young woman, Billy is the one who purchases
her and holds her up so the vampires can drink her blood.
When the vampires have to hide from the sunlight during the
day, Billy protects their residents from sunlight, puts up
curtains, and does all these other things to make sure they
don't die while the sun's out. But it's also a onesided
relationship. Billy serves the main vampire
antagonist, Damon Julian, because he believes, and Damon
has told him so, though it's a lie that he will one day turn
him into a vampire himself. But Billy never gets that.
It's never, never have. There's no benefit to him in the
long run. They've totally used him to be
their go between between humanity and then he's their
slave catcher, their bait Finder.
So he's truly turned against his own kind for a deal that he
should be able to suss out is never going to happen.
He should be able to figure out that they're lying to him, but
he wants it badly enough. He's perhaps evil badly on his
own badly enough to want this, so much that he's willing to
believe it. He brags about how the vampires
are superior and how he's going to be one one day too.
So he treats humans coldly. He treats them to you know, he's
severe towards disloyalty, very threatening.
When Billy is dying and begs Julian to say finally Sherman a
vampire. Damon laughs and at him and
informs him that actually vampires can't make humans into
into other vampires. Zaka.
And then he watches him die. Spoiler alert, sorry I told you
to read the book and then we go and tell you this part, not that
crucial of a moment. You know like the when the
secondary villain dies. Like yeah, you probably saw that
coming. Maybe not the exact way, but
doesn't that sound a lot like Craster?
Like Billy, Crasher has no qualms about commanding a
household of enslaved people and doing whatever the evil people
want in exchange for. It's like the underpants gnomes
step three profit there, but there is.
Yeah, but there is no profit. Just as Billy gave human flesh
in the form of enslaved people to Damon, Julian, and his
favorite fellow vampire, so Crasser gives the other human
flesh in the form of his own enslaved sons.
Just as Billy is proud to serve the antagonistic vampires
because they give him a sense of importance and protection, so
Craster confidently declares himself a godly man protected by
his gods. But it's all a lie.
They're all just using it. Just as Billy's relationship was
with Damon Julian. It's one side.
In the end, Billy was no more than a slave himself to Damon.
Julian, he just didn't know it. Craster doesn't also doesn't
realize that he's more never more than a slave to the others.
He says that we're left alone. We were right with the gods.
That's why we're left. Get right with the gods and
they'll be left alone. But as we pointed out, his
definition of left alone is. I just don't agree with it.
That's not left alone. The others did not care that
crashed or was killed during the mutiny of his keep.
We're not going to take revenge on his behalf.
There's not no comeuppance for anyone else in that regard any
more than Damon. Julian cared what happens to his
human thralls. They're just a thing to have for
a while to use up. And when they use up, you go get
another one. Cattle, just like he said at the
beginning, only good for feasting or enslavement to the
others. Same thing.
Yeah, And this is the other clue.
Billy believes that the vampires can make him a vampire.
Think about that here. Craster believes the sons are
being turned into more others. Well, it's entirely possible
that's complete bull. Even if that was possible at
someday, like the others had to come from somewhere.
Whether his sons are actually being turned into it, quite
possibly the full born lie, full blown lie similar to Damon,
Julian lying to Billy about being able to make him a
vampire. They know actually you can't do
that or we don't have the power to do that.
One quick thought. It might not be a fullblown lie.
Cresser might believe it and just not actually know what's
going on. He might have pieced that
together, or someone else told him and he believed it.
Or something like that. And he's not personally being
expected to turn into another, so it's not like he expects that
benefit person. So that is another small
difference. Great.
Right up there. I really appreciated that.
I hadn't read that book in so long.
There's no way I would have remembered all the parallels.
So thanks, Nina. Very good.
What? Was the name of that book again.
Fever Dream, but spelled FEVRE, not FEVER.
The Fever River in the north is spelled that way.
So it's a nod to especially because it's a river boats that
takes place in the Mississippi. Pretty much the whole story.
You sure it's not February, February?
Dream the fever. A dream.
Yeah, Fever dream. One of George's production isn't
it? George's production company
called Fever River. Yeah, he's also got High Guard
and entertainment. A lot of his sub companies have
Game of Thrones names or or in this case Fever Dream name.
So both John and Sam have all this information because they
experienced crashers keep. And as I said earlier Gilly does
2 and more. She's something of an untapped
source of knowledge here, and since she's still out there,
still alive with Sam, she might say more things that would make
us want to come back to this topic and add to it at some
point. There's a few other survivors
like Gran and Ulmer, and Oliver said that I've seen some things
as well. They might, they might weigh in,
they might matter because those three are currently all alive
through his child. Craster also plays a role in the
as yet unresolved replaying of the Tower Joyce scenario.
We mentioned that briefly, something that John, Younger
John would not have done, but Lord Commander John killed the
boy. The one who killed the boy is
swapping boys. And yeah, so Craster's child is
in Old Town. That's a strange place for
Craster's child to end up, but that's where we're at because
Dallas babe was left there. Oh, wait, did I get that
backwards? I got that backwards.
Gillian Craster's son is still
at the wall. Yeah, Gillian Craster's son is
still at the wall. And Gillian, I even have it
written correctly here. I just said it wrong.
Dala and man's Raiders son is the one she brought to Old Town.
The one that isn't hers, right? But that's also very
interesting. That doesn't do the interesting
aspect of it and how similar it is to the Tower Joy in reverse.
Like send send 1 N, leave the other S Except yeah, there isn't
necessarily two babies in the first scenario, but there is a a
hidden identity here, so we'll have to see what happens there.
It could be a really awkward similarity where you instead of
being sacrifice to the others, just sacrifice to Melisandre
instead. Like literally out of the frying
pan. Into the fire, out of the
freezer, into the frying pan. What is not quite literal,
pretty close. And that's our episode folks
really enjoyed talking about crafters, Creepy as that subject
is the mysteries, and the stuff about the others is really fun
topic. The trivia question.
Yes, yes, yes. The question was, who does John
see sleep in a tree? You made a joke, Sean.
You said a big person. His name is Giant, but he's it's
one of those reverse nicknames. I think a shave made that joke.
Oh my bad. I'm sorry shave made that joke.
You were writer than you knew. But as we know, Giant is 5 feet
tall. It's a it's a nickname like
little you know little Kevin or whatever.
A Little Walter. Exactly.
That's a thing. Yep.
Like I said next week we're off. We'll be putting up an older
episode. Some of y'all might not have
seen it. So definitely keep your eyes on
the feed. But then after that we'll be
launching into Valoretas for Fire and Blood.
That should be a lot of fun, a lot of rabbit holes, a lot of
great discussions. We're diving right into the
text. Y'all, can't wait.
Some episodes that we mentioned during this one that you might
want to consider if you want to stay in this general topic area.
Basically our entire religion and magic series from way back,
the Comet Knights, King, the Wherewood episode and the
Wherewood Tour episode. So a lot of related topics to
this one, especially the Wherewood stuff, but I think too
pretty much. And we mentioned the comment as
well, the Pact as well might be relevant depending on where
you're thinking, what you're thinking about And the Children
of the Forest up, those are some valor radius for the World of
Ice and Fire, ones that we did about a year and a half ago.
So check those out if you want to or haven't, especially if you
haven't already. But a lot of them are fun to
relisten to. Well, thank you to those of you
who support us on Patreon or Spotify.
That is very much what we require to continue existing.
You know, that's the world we live in.
You got to make a living in order to do what you do.
And we rely on y'all we are. Our sponsors are inconsistent.
It's good to have, but we can't rely on it.
But we do rely on y'all, so take advantage of our special $2.00.
Sign up for Patreon. You can lock that price in
forever, as long as you keep consistent with it.
As long as you stay on and don't fall off, you'll lock that price
in forever, get all our bonus content and other things for the
foreseeable future. And that's great because the
price is going up for five, so you'll be spending less than
half of that. Big shout out to Nina.
A lot of great notes today. Good queenalley.tumblr.com is
where to find her. As always, thanks as well to
Joey, Jesse and Bran for the music and intro stuff that we
have. We're really proud of of those
who love our music and our intro.
Thanks as well to Michael Clarfeld for the maps as well as
our older video intro, which we also love very much.
Claradox with a K dot DE is his website and can buy downloadable
copies of the maps which you can go take to a print store and
have it printed out. That's what we do.
That's right, Shay. Is muted.
Oh, you're. I said notably he's working on a
Stormlight Archive map right now, which is a different
fandom. That's Brandon Sanderson, and he
has done other fandoms in the past cuz he has, like the
Witcher map and whatnot. D&D perhaps?
I forget. Yeah.
So Michael busy as always, doing great things.
We'll keep you abreast if you aren't following him directly,
but I do recommend and also thanks to our Benjaneer, named
so after a character who came up several times this episode.
Unlike the Ben Gineer, we know where I'm sorry.
Unlike Benjin, we know where the Ben Gineer lives.
I was like, that's like named for Ben.
I never thought about Ben Gineer being a Benjin.
Like all this time. I just like OK, Ben.
And you didn't know? That's funny.
I never thought of the Benjin part of it.
Yeah, that's part of why I love it so much.
It's a multifaceted, fitting nickname.
You hear that, Ben Gineer, as you're editing this?
Yes, he does. Anyway, we'll see you all soon
for Valharidis, Fire and blood. And you know what to do before
that Valhariridis.