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Wall defense if North secedes


HosteenOsteen

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If the North seceded definitely under the Starks, would the North and the rump Iron Throne state share in having to provide for the defense of the Wall?



or what that just be the KitN's responsibility?




We know Manderly was building a fleet and minting currency to provide for the North's needs in this situation, but what about the Wall?




Much like comparable real world situations, I don;t think the Greatjon etc thought this out before rebelling.....





And note the only one who ended up helping the Wall was Stannis...I know Robb was preoccupied, but.....


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Perhaps, in time if relations normalize, the South might allow the Black Brothers take prisoners, but only lowborns and only in small numbers. Perhaps the South would start a new Wall in the Neck, protecting the Iron Throne from those barbarians under the KitN.



And I do agree, nobody thought about this. But neither has anyone in the South. The wall has been forgotten for a long time.


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I agree that if peace was established between the North and the Iron Throne, eventually the South would have sent men to the Night's Watch again. The Watch was going through great lengths to remain neutral so whoever ends up with rule of the South would probably reestablish ties with them over time.



The idea of a wall to keep out northerners is interesting. The northmen are much more like the Wildlings so it's not beyond the realm of possibility for the South to decide to keep them all out.


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The Wall didn't get anything of substantial worth from the South since Jaehaerys and Alisanne, I think. So, nothing'll really change. With independent North, Randyll Tarly will still send his disappointment of a son to the Watch. King's Hand will still graciously allow a recruiter to draft useless criminals from royal dungeons. Or did I miss chests of gold and wagons of good steel, traveling recently from King's Landing to Castle Black?


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I take the point about Harren's brother and so on, but, as real world examples indicate, is is not that easy for a polity united for three hundred years to go back to its constituent parts and have the now-supranaitonla institutions be the same. This happened with the nuclear weapons and the Black Sea fleet with Russia and Ukraine, it would have happened with the BBC and the national health if the Scottish referendum had won. The North's secession would really end Westeros as everyone knew it, and I'm not sure it would be was easy as going back to the Watch the way it was before Aegon.



In addiiton, it;s clear that, even though the South participated before Aegon, the Starks had the leading role and responsibility. the new KitN would have to assume this, and in Robb's short tenure--and yes he had untold distractions--he showed no inclination to do this, neither did halon, neither for that matter did Asha. the only one who did was Stannis......


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That support, that logistics system, supposedly dismantled because of the secession, simply wasn't there in the first place. How the South thought about the Wall, was accurately expressed by Tyrion in AGOT: "a midden heap for all the misfits of the realm". The Watch was in a dreadful shape long before Robb's coronation. No men, no money, and ostensibly no purpose. Nobody believed in grumkins and snarks, and it was the Warden of the North's business to protect his domain from the wildlings, and the rest of the realm didn't give any more fucks about them than the nortmen did about the mountain clans troubling the Vale.



Your examples, nuclear weapons etc., are seriously anachronistic. A navy, a nuclear arsenal, or even a government-owned TV station, are countrywide enterprises, significant positions in country's budget if nothing else. The Wall, on the other hand, has received nothing of noteworthy value from the Iron Throne for decades. There're no subsidies from the royal purse, no obligatory taxes for the benefit of the Night's Watch. Remember Yoren's mission, back when the Seven Kingdoms were still one? Black brothers were allowed to beg, that was the full extent of the help the Watch got from the South. Well, they still can do that.


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I take FerociousVeldtRoarer's point about anachronism and the Wall being largely thought superfluous, but Hammerman's Revolt does bring up the way the Wall was used to park various people not wanted by the polity but who for various reasons (as with Ned Stark in the original Cersei scenario) were inadvisable to execute. I still think that playing this role for two or more realms instead of one would have, presented some logistical difficulties...of course not as much as the modern-day examples I gave, but enough that the people around Robb (or Balon, but what hope of this) might have considered this as a problem


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Well, politically valuable prisoners like bloodraven, Aemon, Tarly, Slynt and Ned were sometimes were quite important for the watch. It seems highly unlikely that the south would send any of those through foreign territory.

They'd done it at least since the times of Nymeria; a handful of kings of various parts of today's Dorne ended their career on the Wall. Way, way before the Conquest.

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The rest of Westeros contributed to the watch before the conquest.



Tywin holds men back from going to the Wall during The War of the Five Kings because dealing with Wildling raiders would hurt both the north and Iron Born. Once a peace was made and relations normalized it would continue much the same as it was before Northern independence.


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The rest of Westeros contributed to the watch before the conquest.

Tywin holds men back from going to the Wall during The War of the Five Kings because dealing with Wildling raiders would hurt both the north and Iron Born. Once a peace was made and relations normalized it would continue much the same as it was before Northern independence.

This.

They didn't have a problem sending people up to the watch when everyone had their seperate kingdoms so I don't imagine there being a problem if that were to happen again.

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