Coldhands appears out of the haunted forest exactly when Samwell Tarly and Gilly need rescuing most, mounted on an elk and wielding a blade with an unnerving, unhurried competence, and gives his own name — such as it is — from the plain fact that his hands are permanently, unnaturally cold to the touch. He does not eat, does not seem to feel the cold that would kill an ordinary man, and speaks of serving the three-eyed crow with a loyalty that survives whatever has been done to, or has happened to, the rest of him. Even the children of the forest Bran later meets treat Coldhands with a wary, sorrowful familiarity, offering only that he was killed long ago — a claim the text neither confirms in full nor contradicts outright. A maester records, with the particular unease his order reserves for questions it cannot answer, that Coldhands is drawn thin enough between living ranger and animated corpse that the published books have deliberately declined to settle the matter either way.
Coldhands
- Life
- the books give no fixed year, and Coldhands's own nature — living man, wight, or something else entirely — is left deliberately unresolved
- House
- none — an unidentified figure encountered beyond the Wall
A mysterious figure of the haunted forest whose true nature the chronicle will not speculate on beyond what the books themselves confirm.
The arc of Coldhands
This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
In the timeline
Theories about Coldhands
Is Coldhands alive?
Unresolved — the published books deliberately leave open whether he is a living man, a wight, or something else again; the chronicle will not settle what the text itself has not.
Who is Coldhands?
A mysterious, unnaturally cold-handed figure of the haunted forest who has twice rescued travelers beyond the Wall and claims to serve the three-eyed crow, his true identity never confirmed in the published books.