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The lands of always winter
The lands of always winter




the lands of always winter

Speaking of heroes that enter the otherworld, one such story is the Irish tale of the Voyage of Bran (different Bran than the Welsh Brân the Blessed), in which a man named Bran embarks on a quest to Emain (one of the names of the Irishh otherworld), which is a place of lasting spring and summer. There’s also a recurring theme in otherworld stories of an otherworldly woman beckoning heroes toward her, which sounds very similar to the tale of Night’s King and the corpse queen. An element of otherworld myths is that it exists alongside the edge of our world, which reminds me a lot of how the Wall is described as the “end/edge of the world”. The main similarity that is confirmed between the two is just that the Others are supposed to have the same sort of haunting beauty. I don’t think that the Others are a one-to-one for the aos sí, but GRRM could certainly take the territorial characteristics of those mythological creatures and use it as influence for the Others. This characteristic of the aos sí has inspired the theory that the reason that the Others in ASOIAF are angry is because some sort of transgression was committed against them. A large part of the aos sí mythos involve them being extremely territorial, only becoming aggressive when someone invades their home. This stealing of the babies was usually punishment for trespassing or committing some other offense. The aos sí are also connected to the changeling myths, changelings being babies that were taken by these magical folk and replaced with something else (see the similarity with how Craster’s sons are taken by the Others).

the lands of always winter

I think most people know about how GRRM said that the Others are inspired by the aos sí (aka the sídhe), a supernatural race that lives in the Gaelic Otherworld. While the concept of an otherworld appears in many Indo-European mythologies, GRRM draws the most influence from Celtic myths. Okay one of the rabbit holes that I love going down and over-thinking about is ASOIAF’s take on the otherworld.






The lands of always winter