Yeah, I definitely agree with you that I want some more info about the Others, otherwise the whole thing will be a bit too "typical zombie stuff" for me to be honest, and that I find really boring (as exciting as I admittedly found the battle in this episode).

It could still be cyclical, just maybe cycles are 8000 years long. There could have been earlier cycles about which no information has survived, or we might only be on the second cycle now.

Well, it could still be cyclical, but maybe the first cycle was so long ago that no information survices, or we're only on the second cycle so far.

I recently had the discussion with a friend about the pyramids of Gizeh (~2500 BCE) being older to Julius Caesar than Julius Caesar is to us. Of course the math is obvious (unless you believe in magical beings from space having built the pyramids or similar nonsense), but still, quite mindboggling when I really think…

Well even if you do make copies, keeping track of 8000 years' worth of records can be tricky. Plus, the Night's Watch has been on the decline for a while too and is seriously understaffed, so maybe there simply weren't enough people to make sure all important info was being preserved.

Well, considering the wall was built thousands of years ago, I could easily imagine its original purpose getting lost over time, despite the Night's Watch's library (after all the Night's Watch has been on the decline for a while itself, maybe they lost some stuff, or just don't have enough people to properly keep…

I'm actually waiting until the season's over to binge it all at once for precisely that reason. And yes, I'm spoiling myself by reading reviews and comment sections, but then again, I've read up on what happens in the books anyway, so that's nothing new to me, and I enjoy the comment sections too much to abstain.

Some argue that that's part of the show's (and books') point. The human squabbles for power pale in comparison to the larger threats to the world

Yeah, Commander Mormont has been dismembered, unless of course Karl lied about it being Mormont's skull, but I doubt it.

Hm… war of the gods, now that would be something. Maybe they duke it out on our plane of existence via White Walkers and other chess pieces? Pure speculation of course, we shall see.

Yeah, but White Walkers imply long winters. Sure they weren't able to insta-freeze that bay, but I think the chances of a moat not freezing over during a multi-year winter aren't that great. At least not high enough so that I'd want to rely on it keeping me safe in that world.

I think if they could swim, the wall would have been pointless in the first place? I'd reckon the people who built the wall would have known whether or not the White Walkers were also White Swimmers since they'd fought them for quite a while if I remember right.

They have been defeated before according to show lore, or not? Maybe they want to increase their chances this time around.

That said, and for as bad as most of GoT humanity is, it'd be a pretty
hard turn to show how turning little kids into ravenous zombies is a net
positive!

Might makes right. That's brilliant. Bummer that we don't have something similarly succinct and elegant in my native tongue for this. I shall remember it, thank you!

Whether it was really needed is a different question, but it certainly helped and served as a good excuse for the rebellion. After all, after having won a rebellion what you usually want to do is consolidate your power, and for that such a claim could come in very handy.

Hehe, just imagine the White Walkers turning out to be the good guys in the end (yeah, I know that stretches it a bit).

I don't think it's yet fully clear whether the White Walkers need winter to be able to work their magic, or whether they bring winter with them. Or at least I haven't found any definite info on it.

I would be really okay with the White Walkers not being an incarnation of pure evil or something like that but rather just another folk who happen to live in Westeros, with their own culture and history and so on. There's a pretty cool fan theory thread on reddit which goes into that direction actually, but it's…

With how obvious they've made the "Olly doesn't like the Wildlings" thing, at this point I'm thinking they might as well name him "Chekhov's kid" at this point. Somehow he has to do end up doing something, otherwise the whole arc would seem really weird to me. Whether that is going after Sam, Gilly, Tormund or whoever…