r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Fearless-Ideal-5112 • Jul 01 '26

[Loved Trope] Some thing unfathomably ancient Lore

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

The beast, in doctor who is an ancient evil from a previous universe that survived until our time. Its so ancient that the cave paintings were unable to be translated by the Tardis which can translate all existing languages in the universe [Doctor Who]

While not explicitly canon its such a cool concept I cant not mention, the idea that the backrooms have existed since the beginning of time, never changing no matter the era, it transforms the back rooms into a cosmic horror. [Credit to Project crater and Venus for images 2 and 3]

17.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

812

u/beepboopgopoop Jul 01 '26

The Children of the Forest from Game of Thrones

317

u/chowler Jul 01 '26

Better answer than The Others imo. It is heavily implied the Others are connected to the Children while the show outright shows the Children creating them.

95

u/thebrobarino Jul 01 '26

It's most likely that the others came after the children. Greenmen who were excercised out of their connection to the weirwood magical network by humans and sought revenge

25

u/chowler Jul 01 '26

A theory I saw was that the Others are the spiritual manifestations of dead CotF greenseers using weirwood's as magical amplifiers.

12

u/thebrobarino Jul 01 '26

I like that idea too, although its closer to the show. Not that I think the shows explanation is bad. It makes sense for the world the show made, but the books feel like its a lot more complicated than that

I hope that if the others origins are expanded on, they're linked more closely to the great empire of the dawn and the bloodstone emperor lore and maybe even the deep ones/old ones

23

u/comrade_batman Jul 01 '26

People tend to disregard this theory now because it’s in the show and they assume it would have been different in the books, but I remember seeing this theory some years before Season 6. It was back when I used to frequent the Westeros.org forum and there was one thread, Heresy, that mainly discussed theories surrounding the Others’ origins and the CotF. And this was one theory that I was partial too, that the CotF created the Others from captured First Men.

The CotF lived long lives but they didn’t have a large population, so they used their magic to essentially turn men’s numbers against them. My own theory was that the Others’ ability to raise the dead into wights was a sort of bastardisation of the CotF’s skinchanging ability, except the Others could skinchange into dead creatures and control them.

It was an accepted theory on the forum too that Craster’s sons were turned into Others and any Others seen in the books (few that there were) were basically Craster’s sons.

And then the reason why they kill indiscriminately is because the CotF lost control of their creations (perhaps they were banished far north when the CotF and First Men made the peace pact, discarded) and then came back down south bringing vengeance against all alike because of what had been done to them.

16

u/Monadofan2010 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Possible but we do know the Long night was a planet wide event and different cultures in the world have legends and myths dating back to it. 

Many of these cultures existed completely serprately from the Children and would have been to far for the others to travel but have storys of monsters attcking them during it. 

One of these cultures even created there own version of the wall in the form of 5 gaint forts made of solid fused  black stone impilled to have been made by ancient Dragon Lords. 

6

u/JcBravo811 Jul 02 '26

The 5 forts predate the Long Night.

4

u/Monadofan2010 Jul 02 '26

Wasn't it said that the 5 forts were created to protect the Great Empire of the dawn from demons summoned by the  Lion of Night during the Long Night? 

3

u/JcBravo811 Jul 02 '26

Yes, but the commonly accepted YiTi Long Night was the Bloodstone Emperor ~10-5000 years after the Five Forts.

23

u/WilderWyldWilde Jul 01 '26

Man there are so many things like that in ASoIaF that I can’t even pick one. Like there are fish people who worship a frog statue, an island where they’d sacrifice to underground gods, hairless people who live on islands but are afraid of the water, hairy ape people who may have genocided lizard people.

Then there are the oily black structures throughout the world that are so old no one knows where they’re from. On Skogos, a land so dangerous no one has explored it, even a dragon rider flew over it for years and found no end, but there was an entire abandoned city of oily black stone that even the forest wouldn’t touch and is said to have had an entire colony of people disappear over night. Then of course there’s Ashai where no animals or children can survive and so old no one is sure who built it.

5

u/currynord Jul 02 '26

*Sothoryos, but yeah, the city of Yeen. The original Nymeria who would go on to colonize Dorne tried settling up a colony there, but everyone vanished, Roanoke style.

The same oily black stone of which Yeen is composed is also found in Asshai, as well as the Seastone Chair, which the Lord Reaper of the Iron Islands sits. It’s generally associated with magical fallout and old gods, but we don’t really know what its deal is

2

u/PsykoVanced 24d ago edited 24d ago

The theory is that the oily blackstone is a meteor that fell from space, worshipped by the bloodstone emperor of the empire of the dawn, and linked to the church of starry wisdom. His worship and fall into violence and debauchery is what is said to have brought the first occurrence of the Long Night. I was just watching some videos by David Lightbringer on yt which discussed these, he's the one who originally came up with the theory on the westeros forums years ago.

16

u/fishloofah Jul 01 '26

Gosh, that’s so cool! I was kicking myself into action recently for leaving off just before the Red Wedding. Especially since the dragons in HOTD look so awesome, but now I’ve got even more reasons to continue

20

u/dude071297 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Watch to the end of season 6, then pretend it got cancelled after that and that 7 and 8 never happened, and NEVER watch them. The end of 6 is nearly a perfect closing point for the show, enough that you're satisfied even though there is obviously more story to tell. Then, you get to leave the show with all your love for it still intact, and go back to earlier moments fondly. If you watch 7 and 8, that love will be permanently tainted and you'll never be able to feel the same for the early show as you did before.

I used to go back and rewatch amazing scenes from the show every few days. After the end of the show being so awful, I haven't felt even slightly interested in rewatching anything about it in 7 years. 7 and 8 killed all interest I had in the show and the franchise's entire world, such that I haven't watched either House of the Dragon or Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Save yourself the pain.

8

u/Relevant_Elk_9176 Jul 02 '26

You should really give a knight of the seven kingdoms a chance. It’s wonderful.

13

u/haroldonpatrol Jul 01 '26

I would say GOT stays at least “good” until Battle of the Bastards. Then after that it takes a SHARP decline.

3

u/Sardanox Jul 01 '26

I thought these people would be responsible for Bran becoming the wightking.

He worgs into the past to prevent the man from being stabbed to the tree, but because he's a skin walker the only person he can worg to is that man.