Isn't it strange that the Children retreated to beyond the Wall?

[Colton Casados-Medve]

If the First Men and the Children allied against the Others, initially, and the Wall was built to keep the Others out of the rest of Westeros, why would the last sanctuary (that we know of definitively) of the Children be located beyond the Wall, where they are threatened by the very thing that almost destroyed them?

This leads to another question. Why wouldn't the Children and First Men have finished the job against the Others? If they were winning, why not eliminate every last one, to ensure that the threat never returned, so that the Wall would never have to be built in the first place? Is the Land of Always Winter some sort of place of power for them, such that they couldn't be defeated?

Something fishy is going on here. I'm not yet convinced, based on current textual evidence, that the Children are evil or in league with the Others, or that the Others are anything but evil from a human perspective. But this doesn't mean that I think things are as simple as "the Others will be stopped by Azor Ahai/The Prince that was Promised and darkness/ice will be avoided."

[Andreas88]

The question here is who build the Wall and why, and in general we as readers have no idea.

Similarly to this we also have no clue of the nature of the Others, why they came/come, where they come from exactly.

Maybe it is impossible to kill them all? Maybe they are freshly created every time they are needed?

[Nozlym]

the wall is made of ice

the Others know magic which involves using ice

hence the Others made the wall

its so simple

[Colton Casados-Medve]

the wall is made of ice

the Others know magic which involves using ice

hence the Others made the wall

its so simple

This could be true. However, why are all the castles, battlements, etc, built on the human side? Do you think that they were built much later on by humans because they think the Wall was made for them?

Also, why would the Others allow the presence of humans at all North of the Wall? To keep siphoning babies over millenia to build an Other army?

[Slowpoke Martin]

First of all, you need to stop assuming that the Others were "defeated". The Long Night was 8000 years ago, long before written history.

Only the children of the forest know what truly happened back then and so far they haven't told us anything about what really happened.

If anything, there was a pact between all 3 races.

And yes, the Others most definitely made the Wall.

[Julia H.]

the wall is made of ice

the Others know magic which involves using ice

hence the Others made the wall

its so simple

But then why can't they or their wights breach it? And why did they build it in the first place? Humans can go north of the Wall, while we haven't seen the Others south of the Wall yet, nor does it seem that the wights they create can go south on their own. Did they build the Wall to stop their fellow-Others from deserting? Or did they build it to trap the Children of the Forest and to prevent them from moving south? Why?

[falcotron]

This leads to another question. Why wouldn't the Children and First Men have finished the job against the Others? If they were winning, why not eliminate every last one, to ensure that the threat never returned

"Finished the job" is a pretty euphemistic way to describe the complete and total genocide of an intelligent race, even if they're enemies. Total genocide is very rare in human history. Even when Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and killed everyone in the city under the law of herem, he didn't also go out into the countryside and hunt down every Canaanite cowering in a farmhouse or cave somewhere.¹ Even when people have attempted total genocide, even with modern technology, they've (fortunately) rarely succeeded.

And think about it from a cost-benefit standpoint. Chasing the Others into the Land of Always Winter to hunt down and kill every last one of them would presumably be tremendously expensive for a bronze-age civilization, if it's even remotely feasible at all. Look at the early expeditions into Antarctica, how much it cost just to support a handful of explorers. Now imagine doing that for hundreds or thousands of warriors instead. And imagine those warriors aren't just trying to reach a Farthest landmark, but scour all possible hiding places. And imagine doing it with bronze-age technology and social structures instead of 19th-century. And what's the benefit? They already ended the Long Night, and got 8000 years of safety. Is it really worth spending orders of magnitude more to go beyond 8000 years?

¹ And of course Joshua didn't really do any such thing; even later in the Bible, Judges implies that it's just a myth, and modern archeology proves pretty solidly that Judges is right.

[falcotron]

Sorry, I forgot to address your main question:

If the First Men and the Children allied against the Others, initially, and the Wall was built to keep the Others out of the rest of Westeros, why would the last sanctuary (that we know of definitively) of the Children be located beyond the Wall, where they are threatened by the very thing that almost destroyed them?

After the Long Night, we're told that the Children slowly withdrew into the deepest forests and the other lands untouched by men.¹ Then, a couple thousand years later, the Andals came, and took over all those forests. Think of the High Heart story from ASoS Arya IV, for example. So, the only Children left are the ones in lands untouched by men. Which means, primarily, the frozen lands beyond the Wall.² So, there's really no mystery here. They're beyond the Wall because that's the only place still left available to them.

¹ Of course the gradual disappearance of the Children isn't just a literal description; it also evokes similar fantasy tropes, like Tolkien's elves withdrawing deeper into their forests and gradually "diminishing" in the Fourth Age. And I'm sure you're meant to see that allusion, and pick up, relatively early in the story, the connotation that the current era in Westeros is similar in many ways to the Dominion of Men setting (low magic, etc.), so GRRM can backfill the details of how it is and isn't like that as he goes along, instead of having to give us a big expository info dump early on.

² There may be other lands untouched by men, like the trackless desert of northwestern Dorne, but I couldn't expect to find any forests or Children there. But maybe there are a few wooded islands that aren't worth settling which still have a few Children that we haven't heard about.

[falcotron]

Did they build the Wall to stop their fellow-Others from deserting? Or did they build it to trap the Children of the Forest and to prevent them from moving south? Why?

I love the idea of the Wall as a magical version of the deutsche-deutsche Grenze. Now I'm imagining checkpoints along the Gorge, and Other grepo archers with shooting orders for anyone who enters the border zone from the north side, and Brandon the Builder giving an "I am a Watch jelly donut" speech at the Nightfort, and a family of Others riding a hot air balloon to Shadow Tower so they could defect to the North...

[Julia H.]

I love the idea of the Wall as a magical version of the deutsche-deutsche Grenze. Now I'm imagining checkpoints along the Gorge, and Other grepo archers with shooting orders for anyone who enters the border zone from the north side, and Brandon the Builder giving an "I am a Watch jelly donut" speech at the Nightfort, and a family of Others riding a hot air balloon to Shadow Tower so they could defect to the North...

:lmao: That's kind of what I had in mind, too, but I didn't quite have this full, detailed and vivid image until now. LOL.

I wanted to say this before: Colton Casados-Medve (that's a long board-name :) ), welcome to the Forums! :)

[Daendrew]

If you have been following my Night's King Revealed series, I believe that CotF is the name of men that maesters flipped over to confuse us.

That is why there are wildlings beyond the wall. They truly are not different than Northmen used to be.

[TheOne-EyedHound]

I actually think that TCOTF are using the Others to retake Westeros. TCOTF are at the center of the magic in the ASOIAF universe, they use too control the wind,water,animals, aren't the Others made out of wind?

[falcotron]

I actually think that TCOTF are using the Others to retake Westeros. TCOTF are at the center of the magic in the ASOIAF universe, they use too control the wind,water,animals, aren't the Others made out of wind?

Where are we told the Others are made out of wind?

Also, where are we told that the CotF control wind?

Also, where are we told that the CotF are the center of magic in the universe? There's all kinds of magic, from dragons to Moonsingers to Mel's fire prophecies, that don't seem to have anything to do with the CotF.

Finally, the CotF fight with obsidian weapons, they're the ones who told humans that obsidian works on the Others, and they used to regularly give a cache of obsidian weapons to the Watch. Why would they do that if they controlled the Others?

[Varyslostloveball]

This could be true. However, why are all the castles, battlements, etc, built on the human side? Do you think that they were built much later on by humans because they think the Wall was made for them?

Also, why would the Others allow the presence of humans at all North of the Wall? To keep siphoning babies over millenia to build an Other army?

Also, how would the wall be a barrier to them?

[Colton Casados-Medve]

:lmao: That's kind of what I had in mind, too, but I didn't quite have this full, detailed and vivid image until now. LOL.

I wanted to say this before: Colton Casados-Medve (that's a long board-name :) ), welcome to the Forums! :)

I signed in using Facebook so I guess it just used my full name.

First of all, you need to stop assuming that the Others were "defeated". The Long Night was 8000 years ago, long before written history.

Only the children of the forest know what truly happened back then and so far they haven't told us anything about what really happened.

If anything, there was a pact between all 3 races.

And yes, the Others most definitely made the Wall.

I assume nothing. But we don't have proof they weren't defeated. Nor can we say that most definitely the Others made the Wall, considering they can't cross it.

[Colton Casados-Medve]

Sorry, I forgot to address your main question:

After the Long Night, we're told that the Children slowly withdrew into the deepest forests and the other lands untouched by men.¹ Then, a couple thousand years later, the Andals came, and took over all those forests. Think of the High Heart story from ASoS Arya IV, for example. So, the only Children left are the ones in lands untouched by men. Which means, primarily, the frozen lands beyond the Wall.² So, there's really no mystery here. They're beyond the Wall because that's the only place still left available to them.

¹ Of course the gradual disappearance of the Children isn't just a literal description; it also evokes similar fantasy tropes, like Tolkien's elves withdrawing deeper into their forests and gradually "diminishing" in the Fourth Age. And I'm sure you're meant to see that allusion, and pick up, relatively early in the story, the connotation that the current era in Westeros is similar in many ways to the Dominion of Men setting (low magic, etc.), so GRRM can backfill the details of how it is and isn't like that as he goes along, instead of having to give us a big expository info dump early on.

² There may be other lands untouched by men, like the trackless desert of northwestern Dorne, but I couldn't expect to find any forests or Children there. But maybe there are a few wooded islands that aren't worth settling which still have a few Children that we haven't heard about.

This explanation makes the most sense to me.

[Mitbert Strangejoy]

² There may be other lands untouched by men, like the trackless desert of northwestern Dorne, but I couldn't expect to find any forests or Children there. But maybe there are a few wooded islands that aren't worth settling which still have a few Children that we haven't heard about.

There is also Ulthos and whatever lies West of the Sunset Sea.

[marthos]

The Children live north of the wall because it's far safer for them than to be south of the wall where Man lives. Man has been far more destructive to the Children of the Forest than anything else, first taking their lands during the invasion of the First Men and then taking their Forests with the invasion of the Andals. The Children had an agreement with the Night's Watch at some point, giving them weapons each year, but that arrangement obviously fell apart a long, long time ago - probably when Man once again starting taking their land with NW's deserters and wildings springing up north of the wall.

The Others haven't been seen in 8000 years, and Mankind, the far more destructive enemy, is still around and breeding fast. If I was a Child of the Forest, I'd like to be as far away from Man as possible and take my chances that the Others will stay hidden as they've been doing for thousands of years.

[falcotron]

There is also Ulthos and whatever lies West of the Sunset Sea.

Sure; we don't know that the Children are restricted to Westeros, and there are hints (the Kingdom of Ifequevron) that they aren't. There could be small enclaves, or even huge kingdoms, in eastern Essos, southern Sothyros, Ulthos, "Americos", or anywhere else that we know little about. But I think the OP was specifically asking about the Children on Westeros, who allied with the First Men against the Others, and still have a presence north of the Wall. If the Ifequevron were also Children, or there are Children all over Uthos, they probably weren't relevant to the Battle for the Dawn and the building of the Wall.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

Finally, the CotF fight with obsidian weapons, they're the ones who told humans that obsidian works on the Others, and they used to regularly give a cache of obsidian weapons to the Watch. Why would they do that if they controlled the Others?

I'm so glad you asked. :)

Thousands of years ago, the First Men arrived and went to war with the obsidian-wielding Children of the Forest. The war dragged on for who knows how long, until eventually the Children conjured up these ice monsters known as Others to fight on their behalf. Men survived through the darkness, though, and sought out the Children in their hidey-holes to force them to call off the Others.

(By the way, here's why obsidian kills the Others: the Children are hardly gonna call up these demons without having a way to kill them, are they? And over a long time, men would eventually discover this secret too.)

The history books say they fought to a standstill, but really men won, and the Children surrendered. (Edit: this is why the Pact is so one-sided.)

The terms of that surrender? A wall is built to separate the realms of men from the realms of the CotF, and the Children are banished north of it. (Presumably the Children are also allowed the Isle of Faces.) Men create a brotherhood to watch over that wall, and as part of the surrender, the Children agree to provide 100 obsidian blades a year, so that men will always be able to fight the Others - in other words, it's a practical measure aimed at nullifying the threat of the Children's powerful ice magic, as well as a symbolic reminder, to the Children of their surrender, and to men of what the Children did.

Of course, time heals all wounds, and now people don't even remember any of this, and what they do remember they get wrong. Too much time has passed... or has it? Are the Children interfering somehow and making sure history is wrong?

You know, I seriously doubt any of that is right, but wouldn't it be cool if it was?