>“You offer me empty lands and desolations, yet deny me the castles I require to reward my lords and bannermen.”
“The Night’s Watch built those castles …”
“And the Night’s Watch abandoned them.”
“… to defend the Wall,” Jon finished stubbornly, “not as seats for southron lords. The stones of those forts are mortared with the blood and bones of my brothers, long dead. I cannot give them to you.”
“Cannot or will not?” The cords in the king’s neck stood out sharp as swords. “I offered you a name.”
“I have a name, Your Grace.”
“Snow. Was ever a name more ill-omened?” Stannis touched his sword hilt. “Just who do you imagine that you are?”
“The watcher on the walls. The sword in the darkness.”
“Don’t prate your words at me.” Stannis drew the blade he called Lightbringer. “Here is your sword in the darkness.” Light rippled up and down the blade, now red, now yellow, now orange, painting the king’s face in harsh, bright hues. “Even a green boy should be able to see that. Are you blind?”
“No, Sire. I agree these castles must be garrisoned—”
“The boy commander agrees. How fortunate.”
“—by the Night’s Watch.”

Stannis pulling out "Lightbringer" to compare cocks with a "green boy" because his manhood felt threatened by some words is also funny on its own but:

>He had to laugh. This is too absurd. Tyrion would mock me unmercifully if he could hear me now, comparing cocks with this green boy.

Two books before this brittle king gets giga-mogged once again by a seemingly blind Jon Snow:

>Maester Aemon smiled. “Your Grace,” he said, “before we go, I wonder if you would do us the great honor of showing us this wondrous blade we have all heard so very much of.”
“You want to see Lightbringer? A blind man?”
“Sam shall be my eyes.”
The king frowned. “Everyone else has seen the thing, why not a blind man?” His swordbelt and scabbard hung from a peg near the hearth. He took the belt down and drew the longsword out. Steel scraped against wood and leather, and radiance filled the solar; shimmering, shifting, a dance of gold and orange and red light, all the bright colors of fire.
“Tell me, Samwell.” Maester Aemon touched his arm.
“It glows,” said Sam, in a hushed voice. “As if it were on fire. There are no flames, but the steel is yellow and red and orange, all flashing and glimmering, like sunshine on water, but prettier. I wish you could see it, Maester.”
“I see it now, Sam. A sword full of sunlight. So lovely to behold.” The old man bowed stiffly. “Your Grace. My lady. This was most kind of you.”
[...]
Maester Aemon was lost in thought as Sam helped him down the narrow turnpike stair. But as they were crossing the yard, he said, “I felt no heat. Did you, Sam?”
“Heat? From the sword?” He thought back. “The air around it was shimmering, the way it does above a hot brazier.”
“Yet you felt no heat, did you? And the scabbard that held this sword, it is wood and leather, yes? I heard the sound when His Grace drew out the blade. Was the leather scorched, Sam? Did the wood seem burnt or blackened?”
“No,” Sam admitted. “Not that I could see.”
Maester Aemon nodded.

EDIT: Some people in the comments have dared to accuse me of doubting the honor and integrity of good Maester Aemon, so I would like to remind people that, even though he had some kind words for the brittle king about his magic sword, few have ever actually accused the man of being kind. I think he might even have quite a bit of sass to him, he grew up in King's Landing or something.

>As Rykker filled it for him, Bowen Marsh said, “You have a great thirst for a small man.”
“Oh, I think that Lord Tyrion is quite a large man,” Maester Aemon said from the far end of the table. He spoke softly, yet the high officers of the Night’s Watch all fell quiet, the better to hear what the ancient had to say. “I think he is a giant come among us, here at the end of the world.”
Tyrion answered gently, “I’ve been called many things, my lord, but giant is seldom one of them.”
“Nonetheless,” Maester Aemon said as his clouded, milk-white eyes moved to Tyrion’s face, “I think it is true.”
For once, Tyrion Lannister found himself at a loss for words. He could only bow his head politely and say, “You are too kind, Maester Aemon.”
The blind man smiled. He was a tiny thing, wrinkled and hairless, shrunken beneath the weight of a hundred years so his maester’s collar with its links of many metals hung loose about his throat. “I have been called many things, my lord,” he said, “but kind is seldom one of them.” This time Tyrion himself led the laughter.

It was "most kind" of Melisandre to show him a sword "So lovely to behold" though, the ruby on its hilt is even almost as beautiful as that on her necklace.

Probably not a very new discovery but it once again puts Melisandre into a different light from my perspective:

>“It is not a matter of gold or horses. This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.”

World of Ice&Fire mentions that there were Valyrian Bloodmages and that bloodmagic is still practiced in Qohor and Asshai, but the actual terms "bloodmage" and "bloodmagic" are only ever used in AGOT (by Mirri Daz Mur and Dany) and mentioned once by Qyburn in Feast:

>"The smallfolk used to call her Maggy.”
“Maegi?”
“Is that how you say it? The woman would suck a drop of blood from your finger, and tell you what your morrows held.”
“Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.”
Cersei did not want to hear that. “This maegi made certain prophecies. I laughed at them at first, but … she foretold the death of one of my bedmaids. At the time she made the prophecy, the girl was one-and-ten, healthy as a little horse and safe within the Rock. Yet she soon fell down a well and drowned.”

So we learn that Cersei once engaged in a magical ritual of the darkest and most powerful kind but nevermind that, it's not what she came for or wants to hear. Other than this instance three books later, the actual concept of bloodmagic is never referred to by name again.

>"This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.”

This phrase however, does appear three more times in subsequent books after AGOT:

>“A man pays his debts. A man owes three.”
“Three?”
“The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life. This girl took three that were his. This girl must give three in their places. Speak the names, and a man will do the rest.”
[...]
Queen Selyse was adamant. “None of these was the chosen of R’hllor. No red comet blazed across the heavens to herald their coming. None wielded Lightbringer, the red sword of heroes. And none of them paid the price. Lady Melisandre will tell you, my lord. Only death can pay for life.”
“The boy?” The king almost spat the words.
“The boy,” agreed the queen.
“The boy,” Ser Axell echoed.
[...]
“I am a small man,” Davos admitted, “so tell me why you need this boy Edric Storm to wake your great stone dragon, my lady.” He was determined to say the boy’s name as often as he could.
“Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”
“Where is the greatness in a baseborn child?”
“He has kings’ blood in his veins. You have seen what even a little of that blood could do—”
[...]
You wanted a way to save your little sister and still hold fast to the honor that means so much to you, to the vows you swore before your wooden god.” She pointed with a pale finger. “There he stands, Lord Snow. Arya’s deliverance. A gift from the Lord of Light … and me.”

I wonder, what's the cost attached to this particular gift from the Lord of Light. Melisandre wouldn't dare to kill the boy would she, wait what boy again?

We do know the price required for another of her "gifts". Knowing the price beforehand made Jon reject it, hopefully she didn't learn from that mistake.

>"Jon." Melisandre was so close he could feel the warmth of her breath. "R'hllor is the only true god. A vow sworn to a tree has no more power than one sworn to your shoes. Open your heart and let the light of the Lord come in. Burn these weirwoods, and accept Winterfell as a gift of the Lord of Light."

Even then, she didn't include the fact that he would quite literally be burning the souls of all his ancestors and he still rejected her gift.

And he won't even reside in the King's Tower, that foolish boy with "false humility":

>It was Jon Snow she needed, not fried bread and bacon, but it was no use sending Devan to the lord commander. He would not come to her summons. Snow still chose to dwell behind the armory, in a pair of modest rooms previously occupied by the Watch’s late blacksmith. Perhaps he did not think himself worthy of the King’s Tower, or perhaps he did not care. That was his mistake, the false humility of youth that is itself a sort of pride. It was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.
The boy was not entirely naive, however. He knew better than to come to Melisandre’s chambers like a supplicant, insisting she come to him instead should she have need of words with him. And oft as not, when she did come, he would keep her waiting or refuse to see her. That much, at least, was shrewd.

What Melisandre and "a man"/Mirri say, is also not exactly the same:

>Lady Melisandre will tell you, my lord. Only death can pay for life.
The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life.
This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.

TL;DR: Two instances of bloodmagic are attributed to the Red God (Melisandre's and "a man's") and Mirri also used fire/light in her shadowmagic/dance ritual and Dany finally used it herself while sacrificing others and herself in a burning pyre: Is all bloodmagic Red (God) magic?

EDIT: Forgot to include Dany knowingly using bloodmagic.

>“You will not hear me scream,” Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.
“I will,” Dany said, “but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.” Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth, but made no reply.
[...]
And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.
Only death can pay for life.
And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder,

The term "bloodmagic" is only ever used after this chapter once by Qyburn in Feast but the phrase associated with it appears twice more in a different context, and all either related to fire/shadows and/or attributed to the Red God directly, who is "God" of light, fire and shadow.

>"When last I passed this way, I saw every rock and tree and whitecap, and watched the grey gulls flying in our wake. I was five-and-thirty and had been a maester of the chain for sixteen years. Egg wanted me to help him rule, but I knew my place was here. He sent me north aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to Eastwatch. No recruit had arrived at the Wall with so much pomp since Nymeria sent the Watch six kings in golden fetters. Egg emptied out the dungeons too, so I would not need to say my vows alone. My honor guard, he called them. One was no less a man than Brynden Rivers. Later he was chosen lord commander.”

Literally the most stacked recruit in centuries, 35 year old royalty who had already been a maester of the chain for 16 of those years and then, unlike any of the other chumps in the citadel, once again gave up real power for the second time to dedicate the rest of his life to serving the Realm.

AEGON V

>THE FIRST ACT of Aegon’s reign was the arrest of Brynden Rivers, the King’s Hand, for the murder of Aenys Blackfyre. Bloodraven did not deny that he had lured the pretender into his power by the offer of a safe conduct, but contended that he had sacrificed his own personal honor for the good of the realm.

>Though many agreed, and were pleased to see another Blackfyre pretender removed, King Aegon felt he had no choice but to condemn the Hand, lest the word of the Iron Throne be seen as worthless. Yet after the sentence of death was pronounced, Aegon offered Bloodraven the chance to take the black and join the Night’s Watch. This he did. Ser Brynden Rivers set sail for the Wall late in the year of 233 AC. (No one intercepted his ship). Two hundred men went with him, many of them archers from Bloodraven’s personal guard, the Raven’s Teeth. The king’s brother, Maester Aemon, was also amongst them.

>Bloodraven would rise to become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch in 239 AC, serving until his disappearance during a ranging beyond the Wall in 252 AC.

The history books:

"REMEMBER WHEN BLOODRAVEN JOINED OMG BLOODRAVENBLOODRAVENBLOODRAVEN oh yeah, I guess Aemon was also there."

>Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, “Who goes there?” Will heard uncertainty in the challenge. He stopped climbing; he listened; he watched.
The woods gave answer: the rustle of leaves, the icy rush of the stream, a distant hoot of a snow owl.
The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
- AGOT, Prologue

The Others make no sound while moving, and they look like "pale shapes gliding" through the wood at incredibly fast speed, you "glimpse a white shadow in the darkness" and then it is gone, it could even have been a trick of the light.

>One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—
- AGOT, Chapter 24
[...]
Bran found himself remembering the tales Old Nan had told him when he was a babe. Beyond the Wall the monsters live, the giants and the ghouls, the stalking shadows and the dead that walk, she would say, tucking him in beneath his scratchy woolen blanket, but they cannot pass so long as the Wall stands strong and the men of the Night’s Watch are true. So go to sleep, my little Brandon, my baby boy, and dream sweet dreams. There are no monsters here.
- ADWD, Chapter 4

The Others being silent stalkers is consistent with one of their earliest descriptions in AGOT, and they are likely once again the "stalking shadows" that Bran recalls from Old Nan's stories in ADWD, after Bran and friends have finally crossed the Wall north.

It is also consistent with Coldhands claiming the "white walkers" don't leave footprints in the snow, and Sam recalling them under the name "cold shadows" (which is how Will describes actually seeing them, as pale shapes and white shadows moving through the wood), soon before meeting one himself, which he notes does not leave behind footprints after sliding from its saddled undead horse:

>Could the torches have gone out? That was too scary to think about. The horn blew thrice long, three long blasts means Others. The white walkers of the wood, the cold shadows, the monsters of the tales that made him squeak and tremble as a boy, riding their giant ice-spiders, hungry for blood …
[...]
The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow.

Sam also notices that the Other is wearing some kind of reflective armor, he also says the Other is "sword-slim" and "milky white". This is an eye-witness report and we only have two of them in the books (both scared half out of their minds with one being on top of a tree and the other in the middle of a blizzard, aka not very good visibility).

What's interesting is that there are effectively zero descriptions of what an Other's face looks like from what I could find, legend and eye-witness reports alike, except that they have burning blue eyes, similiar to their Wights:

>The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice.
[...]
Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.
His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.
The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.

In the Prologue and throughout the series:

>His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his hands. His hands were black like Jafer’s. Blossoms of hard cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open. They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires.
[...]
The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face. Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he’s dead, he’s dead, I saw him dead.
[...]
“The cold gods,” she said. “The ones in the night. The white shadows.”
And suddenly Jon was back in the Lord Commander’s Tower again. A severed hand was climbing his calf [...]
“What color are their eyes?” he asked her.
“Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold.”
She has seen them, he thought. Craster lied.
[...]
He’s going to rip my head off, Sam thought in despair. His throat felt frozen, his lungs on fire. He punched and pulled at the wight’s wrists, to no avail. He kicked Paul between the legs, uselessly. The world shrank to two blue stars, a terrible crushing pain, and a cold so fierce that his tears froze over his eyes.
[...]
He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night’s Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. “And that was the fault in him,” she would add, “for all men must know fear.” A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars.
[...]
Two, three, four. Bran lost count. They surged up violently amidst sudden clouds of snow. Some wore black cloaks, some ragged skins, some nothing. All of them had pale flesh and black hands. Their eyes glowed like pale blue stars.

What's interesting to me is, and I don't know if this was on purpose or not, is that neither the horse the Other rides, nor the Other itself that Sam meets in ASOS is described to have blue eyes. Sam describes the undead horse peeking out of the blizzard, he describes its pale rider, that it moves extremely quickly and graceful, leaves no footprints behind, he describes how it kills Small Paul and how when he collapses, the Other's sword is still lodged into him after stabbing through his torso previously and drags it along with him which gives Sam the opening to kill it with dragonglass, and how Grenn then checks for a pulse on Paul and closes his eyes after the Other sprays out blue blood and then dissolves into milky white bones.

>The bear was dead, pale and rotting, its fur and skin all sloughed off and half its right arm burned to bone, yet still it came on. Only its eyes lived. Bright blue, just as Jon said. They shone like frozen stars. Thoren Smallwood charged, his longsword shining all orange and red from the light of the fire. His swing near took the bear’s head off. And then the bear took his.
“RIDE!” the Lord Commander shouted, wheeling.
[...]
They plunged down the hillside at a run, through clutching black hands and burning blue eyes and blowing snow. Horses stumbled and rolled, men were swept from their saddles, torches spun through the air, axes and swords hacked at dead flesh, and Samwell Tarly sobbed, clutching desperately to his horse with a strength he never knew he had.
[...]
The Other’s sword gleamed with a faint blue glow. It moved toward Grenn, lightning quick, slashing. When the ice blue blade brushed the flames, a screech stabbed Sam’s ears sharp as a needle.
[...]
When he opened his eyes the Other’s armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

The Wights and even the undead animals attacking the NW at the First of the First Men have the same burning blue eyes that Jon had previously described to Samwell, yet neither the undead horse or the Other's eyes are ever mentioned by Sam in this encounter, at all. The colour blue is still associated with the Other's sword and its blood, which is seemingly the Other's reflective armor running down its legs "in rivulets", so that's a new information about them.

>The wind sighed through the trees, driving a fine spray of snow into their faces. The cold was so bitter that Sam felt naked. He looked for the other torches, but they were gone, every one of them. There was only the one Grenn carried, the flames rising from it like pale orange silks. He could see through them, to the black beyond. That torch will burn out soon, he thought, and we are all alone, without food or friends or fire.
But that was wrong. They weren’t alone at all.
The lower branches of the great green sentinel shed their burden of snow with a soft wet plop. Grenn spun, thrusting out his torch. “Who goes there?” A horse’s head emerged from the darkness. Sam felt a moment’s relief, until he saw the horse. Hoarfrost covered it like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails dragged from its open belly. On its back was a rider pale as ice. Sam made a whimpery sound deep in his throat. He was so scared he might have pissed himself all over again, but the cold was in him, a cold so savage that his bladder felt frozen solid. The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow.

A horse's head pops out of blizzard and darkness and Sam only realizes the danger when he notices that it is undead with its guts hanging out, and that a "rider pale as ice" was on its back.

I went over the other descriptors already, but the one that is curiously missing from both the Other and the undead horse it is riding, is their blue eyes. It's nowhere mentioned they don't have blue eyes, it's just weird that this is the one descriptor that is otherwise consistently given when people encounter either Others or Wights (beast or man alike) is missing this time, they usually have burning blue eyes, they look like sapphires, "blue stars" and once even described as "cold stars", but an undead horse-head pops out of darkness and Sam doesn't mention its eyes or that of its rider at all.

I mentioned a few earlier instances, like the worn down Wights gathering in front of Bloodraven's cave that Bran observes while inside, where they have "pale blue stars" instead, so the blue possibly is not always one that is deep and "burning blue".

>The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice.
[...]
They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.
[...]
Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere.

Samwell is standing next to a sentinel tree and an undead horse's head pops out of the "darkness" with a blizzard surrounding them, the Other then slides down from its saddle and faces Small Paul before being killed by Sam, who actually closes his eyes for a good part of the encounter.

Will is sitting on top of a sentinel tree instead and observing the Others from a height, in darkness, with them standing silently in the woods with Waymar never even taking notice of them.

I said earlier that we never get a description of what an Other's face looks like, but that is only partially true, Will describes them as "faceless" and looking identical to each other, all looking like "twins to the first" he saw, which is currently dueling Waymar Royce.

So the only descriptor of their heads is that they have blue eyes burning like ice, we don't know if they have hair, ears or a nose, maybe they have a mouth because they are perceived to be speaking to each other by Will.

The burning blue eyes are only perceived by one of the eye witnesses though, who is looking at them from above, with the Others silently and facelessly standing in the woods, with their reflective "delicate armor making them all but invisible". (I couldn't find any legends about the Others noting the colour of their eyes, but Night's King's corpse queen is said to have "blue stars" for eyes instead though, like what Jon establishes for the Wights he encounters). From what I can see, Will is the only witness (eye-witness and legend/tale both) claiming or perceiving them to have burning blue eyes. Tons of witnesses and POVs have described the eyes of Wights, but only one of them has described the eyes of an Other.

The group of Others which looks identical to the first also "emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first.", so once again they are silent stalkers who either move with, or are one, with the shadows.

>Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness.
[...]
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen.
[...]
The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul’s axe, armor rippling,

They make no sound, leave no footprints and they also don't really move or walk like bipedals usually do, they often "glide" or "slide" around. Almost like they are wraiths or ghosts who don't have real legs and don't leave behind footprints or make a sound while "walking", or a like a shadow wouldn't make a sound while moving around.

>Tormund turned back. “You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?”

They are also described as "white mists" and "Shadows with teeth", which once again suggests that their form is not really a physically manifested one, at least not always, which once again tracks with them leaving behind no footprints.

There are tales (don't know about the main series but in the World of Ice&Fire) that describe the COTF as wearing cloaks made out of leaves that let them basically melt into the woods, so maybe some of the ancient races have some kind of art that lets them traverse their environment by becoming "one with nature" somehow, COTF bleed into the woods and Others bleed into both woods (according to Will) and snow (according to Sam), but this is pure speculation which this thread is not really supposed to be about.

>Do it now. Stop crying and fight, you baby. Fight, craven. It was his father he heard, it was Alliser Thorne, it was his brother Dickon and the boy Rast. Craven, craven, craven. He giggled hysterically, wondering if they would make a wight of him, a huge fat white wight always tripping over its own dead feet. Do it, Sam. Was that Jon, now? Jon was dead. You can do it, you can, just do it. And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands.
He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man’s foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.
When he opened his eyes the Other’s armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.
Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. “Mother, that’s cold.”
“Obsidian.” Sam struggled to his knees. “Dragonglass, they call it. Dragonglass. Dragon glass.” He giggled, and cried, and doubled over to heave his courage out onto the snow.

The only time we really see an Other take on a physical form, is when it gets dragged down by Small Paul's collapsing body, Sam closes his eyes and finally stabs it.

Here we further learn that they have "two bone-white hands", fingers that start smoking when they touch Obsidian, and that they then shrink into a puddle and dissolve away, twenty heartbeats until the flesh is gone, leaving behind "bones like milkglass", which once again become "white mist" and swirls away. The Obsidian, Dragonglass, or "Dragon glass" is then wreathed in steam "as if it were alive and sweating", and it feels extremely cold to the touch. Its Valyrian name means "frozen fire" btw, according to both Maester Luwin and Yandel.

>A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved;
- AGOT, Prologue

One detail I had forgotten to include, they are "tall", "gaunt", and "hard as old bones", with "flesh pale as milk", according to Will. It's currently unclear which parts of their bodies are actually covered in their unique reflective armor, and which parts of their bodies are exposed "flesh pale as milk" instead. Both Others we have encountered carried magical ice-swords with them, Ser Alliser Thorne makes a joke early in AGOT about how he hopes that they also have archers because his recruits are shit at melee, I think that's the only reference to them possibly being able to fight from range, and it's mostly a joke.

>The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life.
She sees me.

Finally, most people probably know GRRM's quote about how they are like the sidhe, beautiful but in an inhuman way. They have only ever been described as faceless, there is only one mention/report of an Other having blue eyes, and the only entity associated with them in the main series that is ever described as "beautiful", is the undead Thistle whom Varamyr Sixskin thought was ugly asf previously in the chapter.

These blue eyes of the Wights also seem to have the quality that "they see":

>Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.
His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.
The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.

Interestingly enough, Waymar Royce's eye that got destroyed by a shard of his sword splintering does not glow blue, but Thistle who clawed out both of her eyes before dying and now only has pits remaining, does have a "pale blue light" flickering in both eye sockets, which gives her a beauty she had never known "in life", as like I mentioned earlier, Varamyr wanted to steal her body before but he was bummed out that she was kinda ugly and old in his eyes.

Another fun fact, the only humanoid characters which are ever described as "gliding" (otherwise it's only boats gliding thorugh water or winged creatures like Drogon gliding through the air), are Arya the Water Dancer, Varys (perceived by both Arya and Tyrion), and Chataya (perceived by Tyrion). And the Others.

I made a thread a while ago about how the Others' movement reminds me of Water Dancing, if anyone is interested:

>The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood.
[...]
She was blind. A water dancer sees with all her senses, she reminded herself. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing one two three, drank in the quiet, reached out with her hands.
Her fingers brushed against rough unfinished stone to her left. She followed the wall, her hand skimming along the surface, taking small gliding steps through the darkness. All halls lead somewhere. Where there is a way in, there is a way out. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Arya would not be afraid.
[...]
“What would you have me do?” asked the torchbearer, a stout man in a leather half cape. Even in heavy boots, his feet seemed to glide soundlessly over the ground. A round scarred face and a stubble of dark beard showed under his steel cap, and he wore mail over boiled leather, and a dirk and shortsword at his belt. It seemed to Arya there was something oddly familiar about him.
[...]
Arya recognized the Hound, wearing a snowy white cloak over his dark grey armor, with four of the Kingsguard around him. She saw Varys the eunuch gliding among the lords in soft slippers and a patterned damask robe, and she thought the short man with the silvery cape and pointed beard might be the one who had once fought a duel for Mother.
[...]
Tyrion sat alone, sipping at what remained of the fine sweet Dornish wine. Servants came and went,
clearing the dishes from the table. He told them to leave the wine. When they were done, Varys came gliding into the hall, wearing flowing lavender robes that matched his smell. “Oh, sweetly done, my good lord.”
[...]
Chataya commiserated with him a moment, then excused herself and glided off. A handsome woman, Tyrion reflected as he watched her go. He had seldom seen such elegance and dignity in a whore. Though to be sure, she saw herself more as a kind of priestess. Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it. Somehow that thought comforted him.

>The sound of the lock turning was the most terrible of all. When the light hit him full in the face, he let out a shriek. He had to cover his eyes with his hands. He would have clawed them out if he’d dared, his head was pounding so. “Take it away, do it in the dark, please, oh please.”
“That’s not him,” said a boy’s voice. “Look at him. We’ve got the wrong cell.”
“Last cell on the left,” another boy replied. “This is the last cell on the left, isn’t it?”
“Aye.” A pause. “What’s he saying?”
“I don’t think he likes the light.”
“Would you, if you looked like that?” The boy hawked and spat. “And the stench of him. I’m like to choke.”
“He’s been eating rats,” said the second boy. “Look.”
The first boy laughed. “He has. That’s funny.”

Theon does not realize who is coming for him, he can see nothing but the blinding torch and he begs his tormentor to take it away and "do it in the dark, please, oh please."

When it's revealed to the reader that it is merely two boys who have come for him, Theon is still muttering something about the light. What kind of regular torture in the Dreadfort could Theon refer to that could be carried out in the dark, and which he would 'prefer' to be carried out in the dark?

>The sounds were growing louder. Please gods, he isn’t coming for me, he prayed, tearing off one of the rat’s legs. It had been a long time since anyone had come for him. There were other cells, other prisoners. Sometimes he heard them screaming, even through the thick stone walls. The women always scream the loudest. He sucked at the raw meat and tried to spit out the leg bone, but it only dribbled over his lower lip and tangled in his beard. Go away, he prayed, go away, pass me by, please, please.
But the footsteps stopped just when they were loudest, and the keys clattered right outside the door. The rat fell from his fingers. He wiped his bloody fingers on his breeches. “No,” he mumbled, “noooo.” His heels scrabbled at the straw as he tried to push himself into the corner, into the cold damp stone walls.
The sound of the lock turning was the most terrible of all. When the light hit him full in the face, he let out a shriek. He had to cover his eyes with his hands. He would have clawed them out if he’d dared, his head was pounding so. “Take it away, do it in the dark, please, oh please.”

Theon is praying, it had been a long time since anyone had come for him specifically, there are other cells and other prisoners to be tortured in the Dreadfort after all. Like the women, they always scream the loudest.

He then prays once more, not that his captor isn't coming for him, but that he passes him by and chooses somebody else instead. Finally, when all hope is lost and they have come for him after all, he simply begs whoever is holding a blinding torch into his face, before they can say anything, that they do "it" in the dark. The sound of the lock turning is the most terrible of all, presumably even worse than the screams of women in nearby cells. If he were not in a tightly secured prison cell, maybe it would even be a rusted iron hinge screaming at Theon instead.

>That man is dead. Aeron had drowned and been reborn from the sea, the god’s own prophet. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could … nor memories, the bones of the soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again. It did not matter. He was the Damphair priest, beloved of the god.

What is dead may never die, Aeron is dead and he is now Damphair, beloved of his god. This new man under a new identity is not afraid of the sound of a door opening, "the scream of a rusted iron hinge", or Euron "coming" again (yuck).

>The two lords exchanged a look. “I had heard your serving man was dead,” said the one with the stooped shoulder. “Slain by the Starks, they said.”
Lord Ramsay chuckled. “The ironmen will tell you that what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. Like Reek. He smells of the grave, though, I grant you that.”

Ramsay has even taught his man "Reek" to pray, although Reek keeps insisting he is no man. Pray that he passes him by, to be specific.

>Go away, he prayed, go away, pass me by, please, please.

TWOW SPOILER:

>>!“It was me who taught you how to pray, little brother. Have you forgotten? I would visit your bed chamber at night when I had too much to drink. You shared a room with Urrigon high up in the seatower. I could hear you praying from outside the door. I always wondered: Were you praying that I would choose you or that I would pass you by?”!<

EDIT: For those who still don't get what I'm implying, Theon was raped, repeatedly, likely by Ramsay himself and possibly by his Bastard's Boys. Theon constantly mentions some of their names across the Reek chapters, but did you notice that there is only one instance of Theon mentioning in his own thoughts that the guy called "Skinner" actually skinned him personally? Even then it's an off-hand remark, he constantly mentions these people across the Reek chapters and they often interact with him or fetch him for Ramsay or whatever, but he almost never recalls anything they actually did to him. Damon Dance-For-Me has one of the creepiest names ever so I was surprised for a few chapters that Theon only ever mentions that he carries a whip with him (which seems kinda mild for Dreadfort torture), yet he confirms my suspicion about his name (that he is one of the worst) only once and I think he still doesn't ever mention being tortured by that guy himself, which he almost certainly was:

>“If the Bastard does come after us, he might live long enough to rue it.”
Think that, Theon thought. Believe that. Tell yourself it’s true. “Ramsay will use your women as his prey,” he told the singer. “He’ll hunt them down, rape them, and feed their corpses to his dogs. If they lead him a good chase, he may name his next litter of bitches after them. You he’ll flay. Him and Skinner and Damon Dance-for-Me, they will make a game of it. You’ll be begging them to kill you.” He clutched the singer’s arm with a maimed hand. “You swore you would not let me fall into his hands again. I have your word on that.” He needed to hear it again.

Remember Lady Hornwood? Who comes to the harvest festival in Winterfell during the second book, only to be abducted by Ramsay and Reek on her way home, married to Ramsay and left inside a tower to starve to death, having chewed off all her fingers when Ser Rodrik and the northmen found her body?

The first page of Reek I mentions how she is on his mind a lot, and one particular comment he makes later on during Reek I betrays what actually happened to Lady Hornwood, because she absolutely did not chew off her fingers in order to not starve to death.

Quick refresher on the Lady Hornwood situation:

>Whenever he closed his eyes, he found himself remembering Lady Hornwood. After their wedding, Lord Ramsay had locked her away in a tower and starved her to death. In the end she had eaten her own fingers.
[...]
“There’s blood on your mouth,” Ramsay observed. “Have you been chewing on your fingers again, Reek?”
“No. No, my lord, I swear.” Reek had tried to bite his own ring finger off once, to stop it hurting after they had stripped the skin from it. Lord Ramsay would never simply cut off a man’s finger. He preferred to flay it and let the exposed flesh dry and crack and fester. Reek had been whipped and racked and cut, but there was no pain half so excruciating as the pain that followed flaying. It was the sort of pain that drove men mad, and it could not be endured for long. Soon or late the victim would scream, “Please, no more, no more, stop it hurting, cut it off,” and Lord Ramsay would oblige. It was a game they played. Reek had learned the rules, as his hands and feet could testify, but that one time he had forgotten and tried to end the pain himself, with his teeth. Ramsay had not been pleased, and the offense had cost Reek another toe. “I ate a rat,” he mumbled.

Reek has his golden 7-finger rule and he states repeatedly that in this economy fingers are worth more than toes, nobody would eat 10 fingers, 0 toes, and then starve to death anyways if that's what they were trying to avoid. Ramsay almost certainly skinned all ten fingers of Lady Hornwood before leaving her behind in that tower, she chewed off all ten of them due to the excruciating pain Theon describes in Reek I, and then waited for her death by starving herself after one last sadistic meal served by Ramsay.

GRRM likes to hide some of the worst bits of horror through certain implications.

Like Farlan's daugther Palla, the girl Theon tried to sell into sex slavery to "Reek" for his services right as he reveals himself to be Ramsay Snow at the end of Theon's last chapter in ACOK. She is still mentioned as alive in the Dreadfort, along with some other children that Bran, Rickon and the two Walders, who are now Ramsay's torture-squires, used to play with, and Old Nan. Still mentioned alive by the end of A Feast of Crows, mind you, that's two books later. And these characters have not been mentioned since the appendix stating them as still alive, in the Dreadfort.

Like, GRRM literally invented and named a few lower born child characters from the Winterfell-household only to mention them once in some throwaway line, and a second time as prisoners still alive inside the Dreadfort several books later, along with Old Nan lmao.

>"Alas,” said Qyburn. “I fear that Lady Falyse is no longer capable of ruling Stokeworth. Or, indeed, of feeding herself. I have learned a great deal from her, I am pleased to say, but the lessons have not been entirely without cost. I hope I have not exceeded Your Grace’s instructions.”
[...]
• {TANDA STOKEWORTH}, Lady of Stokeworth, died of a broken hip,
• her eldest daughter, {FALYSE}, died screaming in the black cells,

Even Falyse Stokeworth was granted the mercy of dying "screaming in the black cells". Old Nan and the children of Winterfell aren't dead yet. Still imprisoned in the Dreadfort, though.

There are two gods in Melisandre's worldview, the Lord of Light and the Other.

>He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night’s Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. “And that was the fault in him,” she would add, “for all men must know fear.” A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night’s King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night’s King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

Melisandre does not sleep, eat or drink, and she does not consider herself mortal, because "Melisandre of Asshai" as she calls herself in her own thoughts has certain motives that "mortal men" would not understand.

Her eyes are not "blue stars" but the 13th Lord Commander since Aemon joined the Watch (twelve came and went according to Sam) compares her eyes to the unique set of eyes that his direwolf has:

>In the moonlight, his red eyes glowed like pools of fire.

That's pretty close to having the opposite of "blue stars" for eyes:

>Her eyes were two red stars, shining in the dark. At her throat, her ruby gleamed, a third eye glowing brighter than the others. Jon had seen Ghost’s eyes blazing red the same way, when they caught the light just right. “Ghost,” he called. “To me.”

Oh, they actually are two "red stars" in the moonlight and she also has a "third eye" she derives her magic from. Like magically enslaving brothers of the Night's Watch to the Lord Commander's will:

>Jon was aghast. “Your Grace, this man cannot be trusted. If I keep him here, someone will slit his throat for him. If I send him ranging, he’ll just go back over to the wildlings.”
“Not me. I’m done with those bloody fools.” Rattleshirt tapped the ruby on his wrist. “Ask your red witch, bastard.”
Melisandre spoke softly in a strange tongue. The ruby at her throat throbbed slowly, and Jon saw that the smaller stone on Rattleshirt’s wrist was brightening and darkening as well. “So long as he wears the gem he is bound to me, blood and soul,” the red priestess said. “This man will serve you faithfully. The flames do not lie, Lord Snow.”

Good thing Mance is King-Beyond-The-Wall and not a brother of the Night's Watch, however the vow he swore was forever:

>A woman’s sobs echoed off the Wall as the wildling king slid bonelessly to the floor of his cage, wreathed in fire. “And now his Watch is done,” Jon murmured softly. Mance Rayder had been a man of the Night’s Watch once, before he changed his black cloak for one slashed with bright red silk.

The King was sacrificed to the flames, and "changed his black cloak for one slashed with bright red silk", and then (from Jon's POV) came back from the dead with the face of another who had burned in his place with his face, magically enslaved to the corpse queen but she says "this man will serve you faithfully".

You may say that Melisandre is no queen, but that's not what Jon thinks:

>“We shall await you atop the Wall,” said Melisandre. We, Jon heard, not he. It’s as they say. This is his true queen, not the one he left at Eastwatch.

Basically the only thing Jon has not done to fulfill this part of the legend is giving Melisandre his "seed", which she actually offered him to already. She even uses magic to have a warm touch, while the corpse queen of legend's skin was cold and ice instead. One sacrificed to the Other, the other sacrifices to the Lord of Light.

>“I can show you.” Melisandre draped one slender arm over Ghost, and the direwolf licked her face. “The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.”
“Shadows.” The world seemed darker when he said it.