“I want Maester Aemon to take a look at them” feels a lil disrespectful 😂

Does anybody say "mayhaps" before they've brought the bodies over? Wights playing come into my castle

The idea of Lord Commander being a gatekeeper that relates to guest rights and deeming who can pass it a great idea especially such a big pick up on guest rights being old magic with heart trees but it would also kinda echo with all the symbolism stuff that relate to all the stuff with The Twins right and the Freys.

This has to do with the 'come to my castle' game that Bran and the Frey children play. The game consists of being able to deceive your rival and get him to allow you to pass by breaking the hospitality laws. The Others did that. They pretended that the specters were just corpses so that the Lord Commander would give permission to pass. One of my theories is that after Jon's death and the subsequent chaos, Spotted Face was named Lord Commander as a form of mockery. This in his madness would allow the Others to pass. I don't think this is the way Martin has it planned, but it is doable.

"The giants and the ghouls" pairing is just as interesting. Who's usually paired with giants? Children of the forest. What's a ghoul? A cannibal monster. Jojen paster anyone? Are ghouls another synonym for CotF? And, are the two pairs opposed or working together?

I always took in the detail that the men were already wights. But I never thought that the Lord Commander had let or invited them in. They had killed the guards and were guarding the tower. But... were they trying to kill Jeor or force them to invite the Others in? That is a horrifying thought. I do remember that it was deathly supernaturally cold when the Wights attacked. Does that mean the Others were near on the other side of the wall to come in? In fact they attack the Watch immeadiately when they are outside the walls. Was their goal on the Fist of the First men to CAPTURE Mormont and force him to let them through. My mind is racing. This is so interesting!

The more I watch your videos, the more I'm convinced you're correct about guest right and the Others. Rereading Dance has also been illuminating.

"I want Maester Aemon to have a LOOK at him." Okay there Jeor lmao

good stuff Michael, I like how you put this together. It's a great example of how Martin takes his magical cues from folkloric ideas - it's kinda like he starts with the folkloric truth and then reverse engineers a kind of magical explanation for it. Good video homie 🫡

This is gonna be SO important, I think. Great job. A lot of this is from AGOT so I feel like it was in GRRM’s mind from the very beginning. And makes me think about the fishy circumstances with Jon’s election

I’m so happy to have these after watching the show and just starting the books years later, you have the perfect level of tism for this

I never once thought twice about that moment! Maybe that's why the others would want to take over Jon's body as well? That way, they could pass through the wall without issue?

This is GREAT stuff. The level of detail that has to go into this collection of stories and world show why it takes George a million years to weave all this stuff together.

One detail I found interesting is the description of the Weirwood grove north of Castle Black where new recruits swear their oaths. George seems to give some importance to its description and I'd wager that is where Jon's body is taken to spare it from Melisandre's magic, and because Jon was a crow and a Stark and therefore would be deemed by the wildlings or his remaining loyal brothers necessary to receive a funeral in the ways of the old gods somehow involving this grove, or simply where they flee with the body as chaos erupts after Jon's demise. This where the story is pointing that the others will appear there to resurrect Jon as the new Night King to invite them south, as his last thoughts before dying were of marching an army to Winterfell, so like the other resurrected characters in the story, will be his obsession. Also on a only tangentially related point, I believe the Ice and Fire of ASOIAF is one of George's in plain sight references to the fact Jon and Dany are twins who will represent each side of the conflict of the living and the dead to eventually reform a new pact at the climax of the series if George ever writes it, which sadly I'd wager he has all be abandoned in his fame, fortune, and advancing age of retirement.

11:36 Hey! It’s me. Lol

just wanted to say thanks for keeping ASOIAF theory's coming, ive binged your channel ever since i found it!

Erm, this is ABSOLUTELY GOLD and so casual 😂 What if when Jon dies and his soul goes into Ghost. His body is empty for POSSESSION?! Especially if they dump his body on the other side of the wall. Or it nullifies the contract power making the wall naked.

The watch literally carried them past.

My question is why did Ghost lead the Night's Watch to the corpse's in the first place? It's heavily implied Ghost is being warged/influenced by Bloodraven. Surely he would know that those 2 were wights by this point.

I'm gonna be really disappointed if guest right doesn't end up being a big deal

i wonder,.. if the Wall comes down, gets destroyed along with its Anti Other Ward, I wonder if ALL the Dead in all of Continental Westeros just rise up, like actual instant Zombie Apocalypse. Conviniently, the Wars and ongoing battles have created and are creating lotsa corpses. Conviniently, its Winter, the Walking Dead will not rot cuz of the cold. I luv it. I luv the thought that the Wall is trully the only thing preventing a continental Zombie Apocalypse. Cuz I'd hate it if the Wight Zombies doesnt reach further south. I want me Zambie Apocalypse. Like in Elder Ring when the Rune of Death was removed, No One dies. Walking Corpes everywhere. I want it.

Love your videos. I’d be VERY interested in you doing videos on some of the other mysteries in the story, namely the Black structures all over planetos, the lands of always winter, the five forts and southoryos

The cloak could be an essential component. Part of the marriage ceremony is draping the bride with the husband’s cloak of protection.

I like it. Especially when considering the fact that Cold Hands is the ultimate nights watch ranger, and the fact that undead nights watchmen, possibly reanimated by “Fire Magic” vs “Green Magic” (Azor Ahai or possibly the last hero??) might be a viable means of fighting the others (no need to eat, sleep or feel cold like Melisandre or possibly Jon), they would need a way to get beyond the wall and back

When you said “the lord commander invited them in” I closed my eyes and muttered, “Guest right.” Damn.

The seeming inconsistency of the body decay recalls another dead thing found on the southern side of the Wall: the mother of the direwolves. We don't know how she too managed to pass the Wall. Was she already dead? One thing is for sure, the rot seems too advanced for the puppies to be still alive. It seems a good cue for another video :)

I was JUST listening to this part yesterday and was wondering about the attack!

Frankly my first thought was after this happened being George telling us: "by the way look up there ? dont forget that . them playing feudal shenanigans ? yea doesnt matter too much." with my second head canon being the Watch invited them in. What if the Wall already did technicly its job? They where just dead carcasses but they where transported through the wall to the other side and could essentially re activate there. Of course there is instantly the issue with the night king probably not having a connection with these whights anymore as they are past the walls but aside that i just looked at it as the wall being a counter spell or emp like effect and once carried past it the effect can ressume perhaps only under limitations. That and we know there isnt too much blood juice in the walls anymore. Cool video as always have a nice day.

Brienne is told when meeting Lady Stoneheart: "Death and guest right." muttered Jeyne Hiddle, "They don't mean so much as they used to, neither one."

I think because the wall is anti magic, others/wights cannot cross it, like how dragons refuse to fly over the wall. Its a magic barrier. Others and wights as beings of magic cannot cross themselves, being repelled/disabled by the wall. However once those wights had passed through the wall they were able to once again reanimate. They allowed themselves to be taken as a sort of trojan horse to get past the wall

GRRM does seem to be using the "Dracula Protocol" with regards to the Others, wherein they cannot cross moving water, they are eerily beautiful, nocturnal, undead that are able to transmute their form along with needing to be "invited" into someone's home (i.e. Guest Right). If they could just barge in through sheer, brute force and will power, they would've done it long ago. It's also a great metaphor for sewing the seeds of your own society's destruction by ever allowing the BBEG to be a "guest" at all. "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."; "Sleeping with the enemy.(Night's Queen)", etc... It would stand to reason that the reverse is true, as well, insomuch as the non-Others need to be "invited" to cross the Wall to go farther North. The NW clearly have a "pass"/magic(Black Gate?) of some kind that allows them to come and go as they like, but such a privilege is not given without conditions. Coldhands clearly does not have the same ability anymore despite once having been in the NW. Lack of guest right may also explain why the dragons couldn't/wouldn't cross the Wall either. Having never been "invited" into the Far North, they are not able/allowed/willing to breach Guest Right by flying over of their own volition. "Good fences make good neighbors.", and it seems to have worked well enough, but change (and comets) are in the air. "What goes up, must come down.", including the Wall.

Hmmmm you made me think of something. How does brynden keeps sending dream messages to kids if the wall is magic barrier?

If that was the case then shouldn’t the two bodies Jon left in the ice cells be alive as well? Now i know they found the bodies at a grove of weirwoods so it probably cancels the magic that moves the wights, but if it didn’t??

Something that just dawned on me is the Lord commander of the night's watch does not last very long in most cases. It's kind of an ironic parallel to being king in that there's a chance your gonna die any day and no body respects you unless you can be a brutal and effective leader.

Fuck!....Having seen all your videos I just knew the answer to this question as soon as I saw the title...Great theory....Though I didn't guess the part about guest rights.....One more rule to Lord Commander being able to invite then in could be that he should have taken his night's watch vows before a wierwood tree. That might also be a requirement for the Nightfort's tree to recognize you as a Nightswatchman and opening the gate. This theory might also be why the Old God houses like Starks, Mormonts, Royce, etc. have a tradition of sending their Bastards and Second sons to the Watch (especially the Starks), as they know that it's more than llikely that one of their "more noble" children would always be lord commander than any of the rapists/murder etc that go to the wall. They might feel more secure with one of their own having such power.

Nice theory, I like it

Don't they bring Jaffa flowers and the other one through the wall before they reanimate? So they're not "the dead who walk" at that point.

It could be that dragons cannot pass over the wall because they are magically bonded to a long-dead Targaryen as the third "head". It could be that warging and green sight is like the green magic version of the fire magic that made dragons and their riders, and further that the Others are just the same thing but with ice magic. It might not be that the wall blocks "the dead" but instead blocks the magic binding that controls the wights. If that same magic is the root of green magic and fire magic, it would track with the wall blocking all three.

crazy that i never noticed this

Interesting theory. I’d posit that the simpler solution is that wights can’t cross the Wall under their own power. Coldhands couldve theoretically asked Gilly and Sam to carry him but elected not to because he’s heavy and that would’ve taken a very long time.

Yes yes yes! Asoiaf feudalism is a front for/manifestation of these magic command structures. Have you read Fevre Dream? The vampire system of becoming and competing for the role of Bloodmaster maps really well onto the asoiaf fealty structures. Just building off of how vampiric the whole "invitations are actual magic" system already is.

So,in the prologue,we experience the wighting of Waymar...Was his ranging to draw out Benjen Stark,who is First Ranger,who goes missing looking for Waymar the Bait,who Craster didn't mention had come by his Keep? Wouldn't they be convenient sacrifices for Craster when he's out of sons or livestock?The Night King Story tells of how he obviously invited a female Other or Wight through the Wall and the men were enthralled...they were just trying it a new way,a sneaky way,by appealing to the Lord Commander's investigation of the a ranging gone fatal,and one missing,all men he sent after the other bad ranging. Can you imagine, Jeor knew about Craster and the sacrifices and Uncle Benjen knew,and how Jon would've reacted to that?

Would this fall under’the north remembers’ but the north has actually forgotten?

Maybe the nights watch staying true means staying true to an old deal between the children, Giants, wildlings and humans. That they all helped build the wall, and when the time came, the watch should let the other people pass through, so theyre safe to. Guest rights would serve as safety for all part during the long night.

Love your theories, but I find this one unnecessary complicated. Could it not just as well be that, while wights cannot actively cross the wall, they can allow themselves to be passively dragged across this magical boundary by any third living party, irrespective of any “invitation” by the night’s watch commander?

If an other broke guest right, would the old gods curse them and turn them into an ice rat?

Was the Lord Commander known as the Night King before they were called Lord Commander?

I have a theory that every single Bran in the story is the same Bran. Bran figures out how to affect the past when he goes back in time and keeps trying to find ways to stop the future from coming to pass. He builds the wall. He builds winferfell. He builds the ships to find help else where and burns them then he find what lies east is but more danger still. He is the one who drove the mad king mad, trying to prepare him for the others, telling he he needed to burn them to kill them. Burn them all.

Wait, by your logic, the wights were invited in by LC Mormont, then by the laws of Guest Right, the wights shouldn't be able to attack Mormont, can they? Unless, they were merely invited by hospitality was not offered to them? I like this theory for sure, but this hole doesn't seem to go away too easily.

12:15 the dothraki also needs hospitality and guest rights to not whipe us out of the planetos

I always reconned that Jon Snow was just Aragorn plopped into this post modernist nightmare. Thus if Jon makes some peace with the ice demons it would be fitting.

but doesnt the wight attacking jeor means, he (and/or the others) dont respect guest right themselves? attacking your host is a violation of guest right

I think it's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure how the power would transfer? Magic really doesn't care about human titles - like, what gives someone 'Kingsblood is an open question. How does the wall/spells know to listen to this guy instead of that guy.

How did they die without bleeding 5:39

Also-Sam brought Gilly's baby through and Bran passes while riding Hodor. THIS in itself is a trick being played to pass the Black Gate. The Monster and the Ghoul. Baby Monster and Gilly. Bran/Summer and Hodor. But there is also something else happening as well-LOOK at the Gate. It is filled with that black fluid stone-darkness. And when they go down the well...how are they coming out ground side STILL once they cross the Gate? They go down that well pretty far. Sooo wtf? Are they underground? Shouldn't they be? And the Black gate is a secret. Noone knows that door is there at The Wall and there is a good reason for it to be a secret. To me, it reads that it is a magic gate that can be used and abused. The Thing That Came In The Night came through THAT Gate. The Nitre is interesting AF too, look ay how nitre is formed and where it forms. Look at what it can do. The entire Wall is NOT what it seems.

Michael-in text there is some kind of Others already thru. They are tricksie Others. Stannis is one of them-this is how he will become Night's King. It is the icey blue eyes. It is also a word-play..blue ice-blue eyes. Stannis should have green eyes or brown eyes. And ALSO-600 years ago Hardhome happened. ALSO 600 years ago there was a war AT the wall between 2 commanders of two of the castles on the wall. The Lord Commander steps in and the 2 rebelling officers join forces to kill the Lord Commander. THEN the Stark of Winterfell, "takes a hand and 2 heads." I can't remember 100% but I THINK that Stark joined forces with the King Beyond the Wall. This war at the Wall and murdering the Lord Commaner 600 years ago is going to be directly related to what happened at Hardhome somehow. And it is likely when the first Others came through and infiltrated. I know it sounds crazy but it would take just WAY too much typing to line it out for you here. The Wall isn't JUST a Wall, it is also a kind of mirror and that Gate is INSANE. The Others are twins to each other-they are blanks. And it gets crazier; the blue-eyed baddies are happening BECAUSE of the Eleni Storm's End blood curse. It goes ALL the way back to Fire and Blood and something said about the Starks EARLY in GoT...the Starks have only been in the North SINCE the wall was built. They came to Westeros to help build it and stayed. I can't right now remember specifically who says it, but one of the characters implies that the Starks are basically foreigners and Ned thinks something about that but I can't remember exactly right now, shit. Maybe you will remember it? Anyways-some really serious shite went down 600 years ago at that Wall and Hardhome around the same time. THIS is when shite REALLY starts to go south-pun intended. For some reason, someone[s] has deliberately hidden/screwed with North history in a really big way-and it was the Starks who did it. The Starks have deliberately hidden/screwed with THEIR history and the Wall's history. That's why Bran doesn't know shite about the stories the Reeds tell him..Arya doesn't know shite about what Ned Dayne tells her regarding Ned and the war, Cat reflects on never hearing Ashara's name again, etc. Jon doesn't know who the ef he is. These aren't just a few details-this is a pattern. In general, the Starks almost always have someone at the Wall as well-they are VERY close to goings on there and always have been. In fact, it seems shite goes whackity at the Wall without a Stark there. All in all, The Silence in the North begins AT Winterfell and The Wall and it is the Starks who are making it happen for some reason.

Making peace with the Others seems too much. Jon may be able to do it, but if the men don’t accept it, then it doesn’t matter. Jon is one man, and he already got killed for making peace with the wildlings Making peace with the others would be a step way too far and would alienate both the Night’s Watch and the Wildlings he just let over. And how is Jon going to force people to make peace with such an ‘Other?’ People can make their own choices and I suspect basically no one will ‘make peace’ with the Others just on the general principle that these are undead freaks that can kill something and turn its corpse into an undead thrall. A pure abomination. So I ask again… how would Jon even enforce such a peace with the Others?

I feel this should tie into guest right

Jon will b influenced touched or manipulated. If he makes this decision 2 let tha others through tha wall.4 tha time they body snatch him b4 he returns with ghost bk in his body.Guest rite you gotta breack bread.Good theory something is missing though.

So what if he could get resurrected and his friends bring him through the wall and Mel wakes him up or thinks she did and what if being taken over by another force and then acting as Lord Commander the power will remain so then what happens is doppelgänger Jon with them trying to get the real Jon back into his body after he goes full night king and invited the dead.

I watched a video recently that makes a lot of sense kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d8dloc-Hl8DOYok.htmlsi=Jbc_DK9hQEtbSqtI I think you're thoughts are very on point, but I think they don't work. Because... I mean, isn't guest right just human sacrifice in the context the others?

Dude they are not shadows. We saw in the show they are Crasters kids.