“Dead things in the water” might be my favorite line in the whole series. Just an absolutely dread inducing line, leaving most details to the imagination. Just an excellent horror moment.

I wrote an article once pointing out that D&D's decision to put Jon at the Battle of Hardhome was actually the point at which the show falls apart. Jon's story is an intrusion fantasy like The X-Files or Predator; the plot is about him pursuing an answer to a haunting question. Once an intrusion-fantasy protagonist knows everything that's going on, the story is pretty much over. So "You know nothing, Jon Snow" isn't just a catchphrase, it's a job description. In the TV episode 'Hardhome,' the battle scene - tremendous though it is - ends with Jon eyeballing the Night King and witnessing his power. The man whose job is to know nothing knows everything, so his central motivation is satisfied; and he goes from knowing nothing to wanting nothing (vid. the "I don't want it" mantra of season 8). Given that the Night's Watch plot is the ticking clock that ties all the other plots together, this means the whole series becomes largely inert, boiling down to the question of whether Jon can gather enough like-minded individuals to oppose the threat and flattening out any of the moral ambiguities the show once prided itself on (Cersei was a multi-layered character with reasons for her nastiness; once she sees the captive wight in season 7, and refuses to get with Jon's program she's just a dumbass denying the inevitable). For this reason, I firmly believe, the later seasons of GoT aren't rushed, as so many people say; they're a dreadfully slow, morally unengaging game of "Get the squad together" - precisely the dynamic that eventually soured so many people on The Walking Dead. Martin's decision to have Jon learn about the Others via a series of disconnected hints has so far prevented the books from reaching that point. Cotter Pyke's letter is a dramatic example of that theme escalating ("Dun dun....DUN!"), showing what a good storyteller Martin is. Winds of Winter is famously going to start with a bunch of catastrophic battle sequences, and I'm looking forward to those, but I strongly suspect the book will climax with the big reveal of whatever's motivating the Others (remember, there's no Night King in the books either) and how they might be stopped. The title of A Dream of Spring will, I suspect, refer to the coalition (led by a resurrected Jon or not) emerging in light of that discovery. This puts the big reveal 85% of the way through the story - almost exactly the same point as in the famously successful Predator. The show botched this; if you're going to make 73 hours of TV, you can't have the story effectively end at episode 48.

Another massive point for Grey Scale is "Dead things in the water". The others have never been shown to be to swim, in fact all evidence points to them not being able to. But stone men can swim. In fact, them being able to swim is a plot point

It seems the sheer veracity and intensity of the flames witnessed at hardhome, combined with months of ashes, is telling us something much more than just burning down huts happened

5:03 There actually is an instance to Wildlings encountering Greyscale. I remember Gilly telling that one of her sister was infected with Greyscale and that Craster forced her out of his house.

I think the one hole in your greyscale theory is that ashes were said to be falling for six months afterward. No amount of burning houses would cause this amount of ash. The event at Hardhome 600 years ago almost certainly involved volcanic activity.

The fact that a passage about Melisandre's ambiguous vision of Hardhome alludes to fire being used against the Others, and not one person tried to use fire against the wights in the Hardhome episode of GOT highlights just how much more thought GRRM puts into even his appendical writing than D&D put into writing whole episodes of the show.

It sounds like a reference to the Tanguska event, which happened to a chunk of Siberia in 1908. The place looks like it was nuked, and the best guess is that it was a meteor air burst.

Considering this is a Jon Con Stan account and I've watched every Jon Con video on this channel, I was still caught off guard with Quins grayscale idea for Hardhome

I love asoiaf KZfaqrs but most of them talk about the same theories. I love that you have a new take on harhome that isn't Preston Jacobs level of bat shit out there. Great video!

An argument for the Others only attacking Hardhome 600 years ago but not attacking the Wall is that the Others were sending a message to humans to not colonize their lands. Hardhome was becoming a proper town and port with ships from all over the world coming and going. They've tolerated (up until now) small settlements of Wildlings in their land, but Hardhome was quickly growing, and I can see them nipping that in the bud.

I think that Davos could be the one to see the massacre at Hardhome. By the time of Winds he will be on Skagos looking for Rickon which is not very far from Hardhome. We know there is a Lyseni ship on Skane which Davos could get on after finding Rickon or/and leaving him. With the storms in that area I dont think he would be able to make it back on the small ship he had before so he would seek a different method of travel. Of course the Nights Watchmen on the Lyseni's ship would want to go to Hardhome and finish their mission so Davos would go them because they would go back to the Wall afterwards. From there its actually Davos who witness the massacre and barely escapes with his life. I'm sure there's some more stuff that could point to this being the case or maybe it not being the case but I coild see this as a very likely turn of events that could happen in Winds.

I feel like the reason why the show only stuff in the early seasons mostly worked is because back then they still had to follow the books and that's why they couldn't add a lot of bad changes that went against the book. But when D and D decided to go against the books in seasons 5 there was nothing to stop them from making bad changes as they were basicly making up things up

Hardhome is painful to look at in the show now. I remember being completely blown away by that scene. The battle was amazing and the moment when Jon and the Night King make eye contact as he raises up all of the fallen to add to his army gave me chills- totally sold me on the White Walker plot as being the show's core conflict. So yeah. Really painful knowing how that storyline just kind of fizzles out in season 8.

I've never heard of it being a greyscale epidemic, that is interesting. Most likely it was a volcanic eruption, but I've also seen people speculate that it was dragonriders or a nuclear weapon.

Babe wake up new Quinn the DM video dropped

I feel like all the hints lean to it being a volcano. The Ashe for years? The sudden flame, if it was humans burning it would be gradual. Also the screaming could be gasses coming from vents in the caves

What if the reason GRRM hasn’t released tWoW yet is because he keeps reading fans theories and either changes the book to incorporate those ideas, or change them away from it because someone figured it out?

Literally every year grrm tells us “MAAAAAYBE in another 2 years, everyone is so mean to me” im seriously convinced hes just trolling all of us

The Greyscale idea is probably the most likely theory I've seen. I caution taking Mel's vision at face value. He's trying to manipulate us with Mel's assumption that skulls mean death. Perhaps it's simply paranoid, but at this point I don't trust when something see to be obvious. I'm looking for the misunderstanding. Is this a vision of the future, present, or past? I think a lot of readers have a rather rosy idea of how a reanimated Jon will be recieved by the forces on the Wall. No one is going to trust a walking dead man without him doing something to override suspension and fear. I'm fairly sure Jon will make a deal that allows him to get the Wildlings out and to the Wall. What that deal is I don't know. I do think that it might be worth considering the skulls are actually a symbol of Greyscale. Fire may not be the only way to deal with it.

One theory for the fall of Hardhome that I like is that the Valyrians mistook it for the hitherto still-hidden city of Braavos, and flew on dragons to burn it

I think it would be very cool if Hardhome is depicted in the prologue of Winds of Winter. It would fit with the main character dying in it

3:10 Jon VIII is where that detail about the sun is mentioned, but in Tyrion VIII Tyrion asks Moqorro if the sun is 'rising in the east' when he sees the Fourteen Flames. If I had to guess, Hardhome fell victim to a volcanic eruption like Valyria did, and those screams the Night's Watchmen heard from the caves were hot air and gases escaping from the depths of the earth.

I wonder if cotter pike might be the intro POV showing how the WW walk in. Would be very fitting for the Winds of Winter book.

Hardhome sounds like it isn't doing so good, I doubt anyone at Castle Black at the end of Dance has time to get there before most of the people there are dead. I think Davos could make it though, assuming he set out for Skagos at the end of his last chapter, there's a lot of time between then and the present for him to get up there.

7:58 u mean the one true king stannis? :D

Grayscale @Hardhome .....that's A Damn Good Theory! It fits.... A lot of theories fit a little but I feel like that's how GRRM wants it to be. Grayscale is the best theory though

Neat theory about the grey scale. Personally, I still think its Dragonlords razing it to yhe ground on the thought that it was Braavos which would still be in hiding at the time. Dunno if it works timeline-wise but it sounds interesting.

The first incident sounds like a volcano & with Winterfell’s hot springs we know the region is volcanically active.

Speaking their doom happened even before the doom of Valyria, I think there’s a large chance a lot of the stories you hear about Hardhome are just stories I’m sure some of it is real but how do you know which parts? Makes it hard to diagnose the cause when you’re going off hearsay from centuries ago in the most unpopulated parts of Westeros

I think your Grayscale theory stands because supposedly Shireen caught her grayscale from a doll brought by traders (in the show at least) and if Hardhome was a major trading port this would track. Also the Others had yet to return from exile/hibernation yet at this point so I think it unlikely they'd make such a bold play and then just disappear again.

great video as always! i really enjoyed the gray scale perspective and history lesson. i'm very interested to see if there will be a bit of a plague for Shireen in winds

You’re the best ASOIAF guy out there, Quinn. Makes me want the next book all the more.

Interesting idea. I tend to think that the original calamity 600 years ago was something to do with the children of the forest. There is a lot of chat about the caves they use and how extensive they might be, and really the only other place north of the wall, where caves are mentioned is hard home. We also know that the children of the forest use fire magic and everything points to the fact that the children of the forest actually consider men to be their enemies. Like others. I tend to think that the children of the forest took their revenge on humans, establishing themselves north of the wall.

The Valyrians in search of Bravos theory still seems provide the best explanation of the historical account of Hardhome's destruction to me. "Flames so high and hot the watchers on the wall thought the sun was rising from the north..." "... ashes fell on the haunted forest and the shivering sea alike for almost half a year." Sounds like the work of dragons to me. And the valyrians were slavers which covers the accounts of people being carried off to slavery. The only thing it doesn't explain is the screams from the caves. But considering that people claim the to hear screams from the same caves centuries later implies to me that what they're hearing aren't actual screams, but rather some natural phenomena. Like bat screeches or wind eachoing in the caves. Or something else. I don't know. Either way I doubt we'll ever get a definitive answer about what caused the original destruction of Hardhome in the books.

The children of the forest,,, they're known for large human sacrifices, especially before big magic events like the hammer of the waters,,,they live in caves, and tree roots grow down, so potentially the roots could be absorbing the sacrificial blood,,,I dunno though, worth thinking about,,,,also a stone dragon is mentioned beyond the wall I believe in danys visions in the house of the undying ,, think snow ends up with greyscale?

It's pretty obvious what happened to Hardhome. Darkstar happened

I’m hoping we see the hardhome battle from Sam’s and/or Melisandre’s perspective. Just imagine the haunting images coming through a glass candle in Oldtown or through Melisandre’s flames. And the powerlessness that they’d feel watching it. Even better, imagine Sam getting the visions through a glass candle with Alleras, and they interpret it as the massacre it is. And we also see it from Mel’s pov, and she completely misinterprets it and thinks the forces of the living are winning.

Never thought about grey scale at Hardhome . Excellent point.

Great video mate

love your videos dude

A cotter pyke POV witnessing the Others attack at hardhome should imo be the opening chapter of winds. We're nearing the end and it would be a great way to set up the long night and get everybody pumped for the rest of the book.

Nice and early for this one, sweet

Best video of yours in a while. Not so joking and definitely made me thing 🙌🏽

I haven't thought hard about Hardhome at all, and now I feel I should! I would have guessed the Children were responsible for the screaming in the caves, but greyscale psychosis is an interesting take. There's so much we don't know about it. Time to reread again!

Leaning about Hardhome’s destruction, my first thought went to a small volcano

Very interesting video! My personal favourite theory about the ancient Hardhome disaster is that something happened there like the Tunguska event, where a meteorite airburst destroyed the town and surrounding forests. It explains the glow seen by the Night's Watch, the ashes falling from the sky, and the total devastation, and matches both accounts of the Tunguska event from the time, and also video and research from the Chelyabinsk meteorite event in 2013, which shone brighter than the sun and could be seen from over 100k away, even though it was a just fraction of the size of the Tunguska meteorite. GRRM has used a lot of allusions to stones that fell from the sky in the past (like the Daynes' meteor sword Dawn), so Hardhome would fit that pattern perfectly. I really like your Greyscale theory though, too! Burning villages as a form of disease control has been used in a lot of places throughout history; the one that comes to my mind first is the old central African practice of preventing the spread of smallpox by isolating and burning affected villages. I wonder how big Hardhome was when it was destroyed, and if it would burn all in one horrible night? And how long would the ash stay in the air? Even scarier, would some of that ash possibly be infected, or does burning destroy Greyscale? There's some foreshadowing there that burning Shireen could have horrible unintended consequences if Greyscale ash IS infectious... And the idea of stone men still haunting those caves is wonderfully dark. No matter what happened at Hardhome in the past, it's not somewhere I want to visit! And wouldn't it be great if Winds' prologue was set at Hardhome, or on a ship attempting to escape?

The really intersting part of Hardhome is the past. The descriptions in the Nights Watch writting of a second sun rising in the north and moths of ash falling from the sky is completly cataclismic and cannot be explained by mundane means. Even if we are creative and say the nights watch didnt see it from the Wall but the eye witness account is from some rangers beeing north at the time the main mundane culprint of a huge volcanic erruption would explain the ash falling for months but wouldnt explain the huge burst of light going of for such a long time. Some years back i went looking for this mystery and looked into mutiple things and after looking more deeply into what happened in Tunguska, GRRM way of describing it is pretty similar to the old real world descriptions of the event including the massive light phenomenon which has been seen for over 800 km in the real world so a a nights watchmen from the high ground the wall provides could have seen this actually quite well. Yet this does not really explain the ashes falling for months, there has been ash falls described but not for such a long time. Also massive bangs not beeing mentioned is wierd. Maybe some combination of a small tunguska style astroid smashing down near Hardhome the impact setting of nearby volcanos. It beeing 200 years before the doom of Valyria is also quite strange so people speculate that people tested a DOOM-spell there but that seems a bit out of scope for GRRM magic. I like to believe it was a tunguska like event that hit and the impact effected planetos increasing volcanic activity. At the time Valyria would have been quite at their peak with all their fire and blood magic yet slowly but surely the tectonic impact of the event made their volcanos be overly active and they were unable to keep it from going out of control over time. Could also work to how the faceless men say they brought the doom upon Valyria. They did some key assasination of fire mages who already were completly over their head combined with a spike in activity. From GRRM works i do think its his version of the Valyrians running a nuclear reactor that has had problems for some time but you are able to manage but then there you are in the Volcanos cowling the beast as there is one of these surges that are happening lately and suddenly a fucking assasin jumps out killing your left and right hand dude their deaths completly derailing your shit and the entire thing goes boom. It would be sweet how a "mundane" celestial event across the world would initiate the fall of the greatest civilisation that ever was 200 years later. A short story about that would absolutly fit GRRM earlier 1000 worlds universe.

Love it!

Your Grey scale theory is really good I've always hated the way Asha just casually talked about Grey scale so this could actually explain it

Look I like the show battle at hardhome where it's this sudden avalanche of wights that sweeps over the village all at once, but the letter in ADWD implies this slow bleeding out of the Night's Watch and Wildling populations, similar to the aftermath of the battle at the Fist of the First Men shown in Samwell 1 ASOS, and I think that just so much scarier. Unstoppable zombies smashing the good guys is cool, but I think I actually prefer the creeping sense of dread you get in the book, which to me is actually enhanced by not having a POV directly present for it. I know the show added some good scenes to fill in the gaps, but I think there's something to be said about the ambiguity of only having a word of mouth perspective on things like Hardhome or what Robb is up to in ACOK that the show misses out on.

I think it was something a bit more apocalyptic than a disease. Burning down a town does not cause weeks of ash fallout.

I believe Ser Pounce is to blame for all of this.

There is one avenue not discussed for witnessing hardhome which would make a ton more sense in the books (and based on the jist of the plot of the show), a warg like Bran. I could totally see Bran as a Raven or a tree seeing hardhome as it is being taken by the others. I could also see the others looking back at Bran or interact, which leads them to the cave somehow. Besides a warg though, I’m not conceiving of a POV either

How does Greyscale create a second sun in the sky?

Greyscale is a really good idea and fits almost all the criteria, only thing is that on the Rhoyne the Stone Men are kept alive by two shipments of provisions a year upriver from Volantis. Presumably without these supplies they will starve to death. So where did the food come from to sustain those affected whose cries were heard in the caves? They can’t fend for themselves, even if there were anything in that place to live on. Personally, I can buy greyscale but I’d suggest that the outbreak was contained by the Valyrians with dragonfire. Hence the sun in the north and ash falling..

Great video Quinn the goat master weren’t grenn and pyp sent to eastwarch maybe they are at hardhome

The theory that the Valyrians destroyed Hardhome as a mistaken retaliation against Braavos is the theory that makes the most sense to me.

If the shipcrews are othered they can sail to Essos and around the Wall, can't they?

One of my head canon's is that a branch of the Valeryan's, maybe even Targs, went up there and brought fire and blood to those Ice Lords. This might have set them back a few hundred years. We dont have any proof because Valeryia claimed all of the records....... But your theory is an excellent alternative.

First: the Others do scream, the very first Prolog shows us that the Others do talk in some way, so who talks can scream, d&d just decided it would be spookier if they didn't. The idea that it was Greyscale is an interesting one, but I think Hardhome was destroyed by a Fraction of the Children of the Forest. 600 years before the current Story, maybe the Children didn't like that the Humans of Hardhome became so similar to the Humans on the other side of the Wall. The Children wanted to prevent that the Humans would become as equally Powerful as those on the other Side of the Wall; so that they would not chase them in the Lands beyond the Wall, as they did chase them before the long Night. Leaf did tell Bran that the Gods blessed them with long Lifes, so there is a possibility that 600 years before the current Events there were still Children who remembered the Events from the time before the long Night and how hostile the humans were against their People. It is also possible that there were more children 600 years before the current Events of the Story. Because, as far as I understand, that town was pretty isolated, so Who should have destroyed the Town with Fire? Other Wildling-Clans don't make much Sense because if they saw that there were an illness of some sort, they would have avoided to trade with the People in Hardhome. Also ... it is a Myth that Towns were destroyed with fire during the Plague here in Europe during Medival Times, building houses is and was expensive and where should the People live until they are dead? It was far more Common to lock the inhabitants of one House into said House and only on rare occassions burn it down when it was safe that the Inhabitants were all dead. Also every Fire was Dangerous, maybe it would spread and in the End the whole Town would be destroyed, there were no Fire departments or anything similar, so it was normal that Towns would burn down, if only ONE House did catch Fire (very prominent Case are the well documented Fires in London) so NO, during the Plague it was highly unlikely in Medival Europe to burn Houses down because the inhabitants were infected with the Plague. Also Townhouses were most of the Time the Property of a Lord, those who burned something down without the explicit Order of their Lord were actually Criminals and were in Danger to be sentenced to Death. So nope, that wasn't how we dealt with the Plague here in Europe, but I have no idea how Americans dealt with Epidemics in their History.

Grey scale fits very well

With no evidence at the present moment...what if hardhome was destroyed by ice dragons. There are rumors that there is a dragon under Winterfell or something like that right?

A point as to why the others stopped at Hardhome 600 years ago. The Kingdoms being divided was not a weakness but a strength. Because they were divided wars and skirmishes happened more often. That means that more prisoners of war were captured and sent to the wall. The wall was fully manned and was filled with fighters and skilled men. The decline happened because the Targaryens brought them all together and stopped the small wars. And unlike before when the Targaryens went to war they burned everyone so no prisoners to send. By the time they lost their dragons and the next war happened the Wall was already a fallen order and filled with scum.

Question, is it possible for the Others to reanimate the Children as wights? Maybe a couple as like magic users? They could use them to do magic unrelated to their Ice magic and at a distance. Reminds me of Martin's other work that involved aliens mindcontrolling humans to do sick stuff like birning their crops and killing the kids.

Eh. I've never heardof half a year of ash coming from a disease. I always assumed Hardhome was a Tunguska style event. A meteor that explodedeaving behind no crater.

I am a fan of your channel from Thailand. I would like you to add a Thai audio track to the clips on this channel. For a better understanding of the content in the clip. and to add more followers from Thailand as well. Thank you.

I love your content Quinn! But could you do me a favor to speak a little bit slower since my English isn't my first language? Thank you for the vids, keep up!

I wanna know where Cotter Pyke is

Pretty sure Hardhome happened because someone tried to hatch a dragon's egg there.Pretty sure that's why the maester Wyllis beats feets to get back there-he was going to try to stop it. That's why the Doom of Valyria happens later on-they tried to mess with a whyte or an Other in Valyria. The screaming from the caves at Hardhome are the CotF, that's why human bodies are found AND they still hear screaming.

🤙

I love the greyscale theory! Very scary to think of the horrors those Freefolk might have endured if a greyscale outbreak occurred. Also, I always really enjoyed Cotter Pyke and the other Nights Watch who braved whatever shit is going down there. The letter is spooky, but I love the matter of fact nature of it.

Hardhome doesn’thit as hard the second time. I could get over Jon not using his lighter, stronger sword from the start of the battle. Felt like Goku not going Super Saiyan against Cooler for the sake of padding.

George come on man we need Winds

Damn the idea about greyscale is very interesting but that doesnt explain why ash was falling for half a year this definitly suggests something more supernatural but its history from 600 years back in the stroy so perhaps it is just some exaduration in the books and it isn't what accually happened

lol "Why didn't the Others march on a Wall they can't pass and attack Westeros?!" - Quinn, a smart boy.

the number of ships don't add up. The ones he mentiones as lost added to the 6 he currently has is one less than he started with.

"A safe Halloween"? Where's the fun it that? lol

I assumed it was from slavers that originally destroyed hardhome

Nothing will happen because Fatman will die choking on a greasy bacon burger before he ever puts a word to print on these ASOIF books ever again.

I get the series is postmodern, but I don't get why that letter is written as a telegram. It is a letter, you can have complete sentences, is kinda cute if you don't think about it to much.

While I like the scenes between LF and Varys from an acting point of view, I'd disagree that it makes things better. These two schemers openly mustache twirling to each other really makes no sense for them to do

It was the children of the forest

The ashfall points towards a volcanic eruption, though. Simply burning down a town would not lead to ashfall for half a year. Likely the volcano isn't near Hardhome, because the Night's Watch didn't report any earthquakes, but close enough and powerful enough for volcanic debris to hit the town when it first erupted then make it uninhabitable for a while due to the ashfall. Whether or not this was just a natural event or something caused by magic is unclear, but I'm leaning towards magic either due to: - a test done by the same people who then destroyed Valyria - the Valyrians themselves, having attempted something unsuccessfully

Hard disagree on the early part of the video. If it's not in the ASOIAF series it feels blasphemous...like editing Shakespeare.

Melisandre is a better and a far more interesting character than Roose Bolton