It’s been shown early on that the White Walkers are human-derived (see Craster’s sons), though.
As to the geography/cosmology of GoT (does the world at large have a name, by the way?), I’m sometimes tempted to take the intro literally—it’s a Hollow Earth-scenario. That would have one effect in that it decouples seasons from orbital mechanics, which would imply some regularity that seems to be absent; but of course, it doesn’t really yield any explanation for the seasons, either.
I don’t know why people can’t get with the uneven seasons. The only reason Earth has regular seasons is because the moon stabilizes our wobble. Without it our seasons would be erratic too.
It unofficially tends to get referred to as “Planetos” but has no official name.
That’s interesting. Has a moon ever been depicted in the show?
“Uneven” seasons I get. What I don’t understand is if winter lasts years, how do the people possibly stockpile enough food and firewood to last. I would imagine a lot of people in Westeros would die during the winters. But they’ve been through this before, so they must have a system set up?
Or do they import food from Essos during the winters?
If I’m not misremembering, though, that effect occurs on a timescale of tens of thousands to millions of years, which doesn’t help explaining season-to-season variations in their length.
IIRC Winter doesn’t affect the whole continent equally - “winter” is somehow linked to the Walkers so it’s very bad oop norf but relatively mild down south. So Dorne, Highgarden etc… can still produce grain and feed the country. Also, remember that some people on Earth live in perma-winter conditions - in Greenland, in northern Scandinavia, in Siberia etc… You still find some stuff to hunt or munch on be it roots, mosses, 'shrooms, barks…
But yeah, lots of people die regardless. It’s expected. As long as *some *make it through the winter, it’s all good.
It’s more distracting when you keep correcting people for slightly misspelling names. It’s not a big deal. We know who he means. Chill.
That’s not correct on a timescale of decades.
No, you’re remembering correctly. However, there are other things that effect seasonal changes. Here’s an article that answers how it could be scientifically possible to have messed up seasons.
Those shouldn’t be mistaken for anything resembling scientific explanations. Mars doesn’t have a large moon and it has completely predictable seasons as far as timing goes (they may differ in intensity).
Having seasons of variable severity isn’t that hard to explain. Having them be of wildly varying length is more difficult.
The real reason the GoT world has irregular seasons is because its creator made it that way. 
Dude, d’you think you might be just a tad OCD about the spellings?
It’s not like anyone is confused by who is meant with “Ramsey” vs “Ramsay”, so does it matter enough to post just for that?
To be honest, I kind of find it annoying too. Especially since it’s so easy to look up. The board requires that people make an effort to use standard spelling—I don’t see why proper names of fictional characters should be excepted.
This is a conversation, not a doctoral thesis. Everyone understands who we are talking about. There is no reason to have to look up the names in a casual conversation, especially when there are so many characters and so many of them with idiosyncratic and erratic spellings for no particular reason. Is it Robyn, or is it Robin? (It’s Robin.) Is it Roderick, or Roderyk, or Rodrik? (It’s Rodrik.) Is it Peter or Petyr? (It’s Petyr.) Is it Randall or or Randell or Randyll or Randyl? (It’s Randyll.) (Actually, given Martin’s penchant for abitrarily sticking random “y’s” in names, I find myself spelling Robin as Robyn reflexively.)
Easy to look up once, obnoxious to look up for 6 seasons worth of threads.
It’s true, A man does not care enough to bother.
My feelings exactly.
Quick, dumb questions from someone that doesn’t pay enough attention: Was the 3-eyed raven’s cave north or south of the wall? If north, how did Bran and company get there? If south, how did the White Walkers get there?
North of the wall. They found an old tunnel through in an old fort long abandoned by the Night’s Watch.
Season 3, Episode 10 “Mhysa” — Sam shows them the secret passage leading from the Nightfort through the wall.
That I am OCD about it, I argue not at all. 
I also understand that many of the spellings are a bit peculiar and if it just happened here and there it wouldn’t even be noteworthy. But when some posters, like Critical1, have had their repeated mistakes pointed out to them multiple times and they still keep doing them, that’s pretty obnoxious. This board has always strove for a higher standard than that and I see no reason to except idiosyncratic names.
No, you’re actively going out of your way to misspell almost all of them and then carry on with those misspellings even after you know they’re wrong. I don’t know why you’re doing that, but that’s something that goes beyond “not caring enough to bother”.