283 replies to this topic

[kissdbyfire]

tze, on 28 November 2011 - 06:58 PM, said:

Yes, this is from ASOS.

Here's what I'd like to know: why doesn't the Night's Watch vow say "I am the watcher on the Wall"? Why does the vow say "I am the Watcher on the wall(s)"?

Well, I've just done a search in all 5 books using 'I am the watcher'. Got one hit in AGot, one in ACoK, one in ASoS, none in AFfC, and three in ADwD. It says 'walls' in all the 6 hits. I wonder how was the vow translated into other languages...

[mor2]

well wasnt the night watch created during the long night, before they defeated the others and built the wall?  

also I always wondered what this part means "the horn that wakes the sleepers"?

[Howlin' Howland Reed]

Kissdbyfire, on 28 November 2011 - 07:11 PM, said:

I wonder how was the vow translated into other languages...

Saw your thread, very interesting (and nice observation tze).

[kissdbyfire]

mor2, on 28 November 2011 - 07:34 PM, said:

well wasnt the night watch created during the long night, before they defeated the others and built the wall?  

also I always wondered what this part means "the horn that wakes the sleepers"?

What can I say?

Howlin, on 28 November 2011 - 07:38 PM, said:

Saw your thread, very interesting (and nice observation tze).

And we already know it was translated 'wall', singular, in German. I suppose there are many things to be interpreted in those vows...

Edited by Kissdbyfire, 28 November 2011 - 07:44 PM.

[Howlin' Howland Reed]

I still think there might be something to it.

Also, Mauern = Walls, he updated his post.

[ARYa_Nym]

Kissdbyfire, on 28 November 2011 - 05:36 PM, said:

Reading it again now with the chastity thing in mind I've realised that it doesn't actually say anything about that at all. One thing is to take no wife; that is not the same as a chastity vow. So what's the big deal about the men of the NW having sex? Am I missing something here? Don't they make somewhat of a big deal about this in the books? I can't think of many examples other than Jon's initial reluctance in regards to Ygritte, and Sam's with Gilly.
I'm seriously dumbfounded with this now. Help, please.

It's said that half of the men at Castle Black sleep with the prostitutes from Mole's Town. & I bet some are gay in the other half so they could still be having sex.

[kissdbyfire]

ARYa_Nym, on 28 November 2011 - 08:02 PM, said:

It's said that half of the men at Castle Black sleep with the prostitutes from Mole's Town. & I bet some are gay in the other half so they could still be having sex.

Oh, I know. I'm sure they are having sex. That is my point, kinda. Why Jon and Sam's reluctance, as I can't see just having sex as being that big of a deal..

[Stark@heart]

Like this theory.  So if the Wall is LB then the Red Bitch has in fact helped to destroy it.  So maybe in the fight that follows Jon's stabbing, Mel does something stupid and brings down the Wall or what if her meddling or  (like theory above, she has be working against the Wall and its magic - so probably doesn't realize, the DB.

Jon, who I think will be saved by the 3 Eyed Crow, the same as Bran, will come back from his brief internment in an ice cell and from the caos reform the NW to include wildlings and anyone else who will stand to fight once the horn blows 3 times.  I think they could be joined by some force of men from the north.  Not Lord's men but common folk and mountain men who know the same stories as Old Nan.  Hopefully the North will Remember and send aid to the Wall.  Those men would be Jon's in an instant and with the wildlings they would vastly outnumber the conspirators who killed Jon.

The killing of Lord Mormont could have been the first tempering, Jon could be the 2nd.  So there should be a 3rd to come.

[ARYa_Nym]

Kissdbyfire, on 28 November 2011 - 08:06 PM, said:

Oh, I know. I'm sure they are having sex. That is my point, kinda. Why Jon and Sam's reluctance, as I can't see just having sex as being that big of a deal..

In Jon's case I think it's because he doesn't want to have a bastard. He knows first hand how they're treated. I think this would be a problem for him even if he wasn't at the wall.

Quote

"Come back to me after you've fathered a few bastards of your own, and we'll see how you feel." Jon trembled. "I will never father a bastard," he said carefully. "Never!"

^This comment was from before he joined.

Quote

"He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night's Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. "You know nothing, Jon Snow,"she whispered..."

Quote

"You are a free man now, and Ygritte is a free woman. What dishonor if you lay together?" "I might get her with child." "Aye, I'd hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where's the harm in that?" Words failed him for a moment. "The boy...the child child would be a bastard."..."I will not father a bastard."

[Stark@heart]

On the topic of sex.

I don't think they were meant to be monks, only that they would father no children. That's what whores are for. ( They don't pop out babies every nine months, only the occasional Kings or other High Born Lords bastard seem to happen.)  I think the vow is to keep them away from the farmer's daughters( how many sons does Tom of SevenStreams have)  and the wildlings, plus it would never do for them to fall in love.

So - sex with Ho or sex with consent that no child be born ( I think Ygritte was smart enough to be drinking Moon Tea, she knows better than Jon that Winter is Coming with all the wrights and Others about)

[kissdbyfire]

ARYa_Nym, on 28 November 2011 - 08:17 PM, said:

In Jon's case I think it's because he doesn't want to have a bastard. He knows first hand how they're treated. I think this would be a problem for him even if he wasn't at the wall.

^This comment was from before he joined.

Cheers, ARYa_Nym! You always come to my rescue when I draw stupid blanks. Much appreciated.
Of course, now that you've literally spelled it out, I remember perfectly.

[kissdbyfire]

Stark@heart, on 28 November 2011 - 08:08 PM, said:

Like this theory.  So if the Wall is LB then the Red Bitch has in fact helped to destroy it.  So maybe in the fight that follows Jon's stabbing, Mel does something stupid and brings down the Wall or what if her meddling or  (like theory above, she has be working against the Wall and its magic - so probably doesn't realize, the DB.

Jon, who I think will be saved by the 3 Eyed Crow, the same as Bran, will come back from his brief internment in an ice cell and from the caos reform the NW to include wildlings and anyone else who will stand to fight once the horn blows 3 times.  I think they could be joined by some force of men from the north.  Not Lord's men but common folk and mountain men who know the same stories as Old Nan.  Hopefully the North will Remember and send aid to the Wall.  Those men would be Jon's in an instant and with the wildlings they would vastly outnumber the conspirators who killed Jon.

The killing of Lord Mormont could have been the first tempering, Jon could be the 2nd.  So there should be a 3rd to come.

This had me laughing so much! I like the content of of post, and just love the way you call Melisandre 'Red Bitch'. Lolololololol I assume the 'DB' at the end of the first paragraph stands for 'dumb bitch'? Lolololol

[tze]

Stark@heart, on 28 November 2011 - 08:08 PM, said:

Like this theory.  So if the Wall is LB then the Red Bitch has in fact helped to destroy it.  So maybe in the fight that follows Jon's stabbing, Mel does something stupid and brings down the Wall or what if her meddling or  (like theory above, she has be working against the Wall and its magic - so probably doesn't realize, the DB.

When she and Jon were walking on the Wall in her POV, and this happened,

Quote

The priestess did not speak, but she slowed her pace deliberately, and where she walked the ice began to drip. He will not fail to notice that.

I so wanted to smack her. Where she walks, bits of the Wall start to melt. Melting the Wall is not a good thing. Why would anybody in their right mind think it was??

Stark@heart, on 28 November 2011 - 08:08 PM, said:

The killing of Lord Mormont could have been the first tempering, Jon could be the 2nd.  So there should be a 3rd to come.

At this rate, who in their right mind would want to be Lord Commander?

If the "three temperings" are meant as a hint for the future (and actually had some relevance to the founding of the Watch, which granted, isn't a fait accompli), then perhaps it's relevant that Jon only felt three knives stabbing him?

[Stark@heart]

Yes, Mel is a Dumb Bitch.   When Stannis calls her on her other errors, she's all blame the reader not the book but what I think is happening, which she can't see, is that she is effecting more outcomes than she knows and not in the ways she thinks. She also overlooks/disregards visions that don't fit into her plan.  I think she's like Stannis - Iron that won't bend, even when the "true" AAR is revealed.

Also, like the stabbed 3 times idea.  It could work.

[mor2]

tze, on 28 November 2011 - 08:53 PM, said:

I so wanted to smack her. Where she walks, bits of the Wall start to melt. Melting the Wall is not a good thing. Why would anybody in their right mind think it was??

I recently reread  the great ranging part and noticed that its was raining beyond the wall, which means the temp is above freezing, I think it's safe to assume that what keeps the wall standing is magic, not physics. so it's just the regular MEL annoyance

btw, didnt the watchmen light fires up there?

Edited by mor2, 28 November 2011 - 10:21 PM.

[ARYa_Nym]

Kissdbyfire, on 28 November 2011 - 08:41 PM, said:

Cheers, ARYa_Nym! You always come to my rescue when I draw stupid blanks. Much appreciated.
Of course, now that you've literally spelled it out, I remember perfectly.

No problem! The books have so much information that it's easy to forget details.

[Ghost Rider]

Serie, on 28 November 2011 - 08:10 AM, said:

just a question, why do you think that the NW oath is crap? I mean, the explanation given, that a man with a family will be unwilling to support 100% the NW and die for it, seems quite satisfactory to me.

Yes, I know that this explanation is given, but for me it's not satisfactory. Sure, the NW man will not involve himself on behalf of that family if he hasn't got one. Though: as we know everybody at the Wall already has families! They have parents, siblings, they may even have a wife or a son. The NW then expects them to forsake these families who are far away from them and kind of pretend they don't exist. Which is quite unrealistic as we have seen in Jon's case. And Jon is a pretty honorable guy.

Now instead of having these families far away, let's imagine, they have them at the Wall. Why would they then be unwilling to support the NW? There would be whole families in support of the NW instead of  just the men, enabling these men to enjoy true feelings of happiness. And they would have a much better reason to protect the Wall then just a vow (words are wind!), they'd protect their families. To most people their families are much more valuable then an oath.

tze, on 28 November 2011 - 05:47 PM, said:

But note which part of the oath the Black Gate requires; it doesn't ask Sam for the entire oath, it asks who Sam is:

Look at what Sam actually says to open the Black Gate:

For all we know, that was the original oath. The whole "hold no lands, father no children" part could have been added later, when the Watch encountered problems with men doing all those things

Thank you, Tze! You put my mind at ease. Since I think there is a story-related reason for Sam to have sworn the oath in front of a weirwood other then just showing just how strong Jon's influence is on him, I want to propose how NW is defined in my view:

True NW must swear in front of a Hearttree. Only then will the magic be invoked that transforms these persons into the Watcher on the Walls. Being true NW enables them to cross the magical wards of the weirwood door. I suspect other magical protections as well, but we will see. They have to hold true however to the essence of the vow (to protect the realm of men). I'm not entirely sure though, how it could possibly be verified whether they acted against the very spirit, since it is very much a matter of the heart. Old Nan said, the Wall holds as long the NW will be true. If so, it is in dire peril.

Coming from that definition, Bowen Marsh & cronies are no NW at all, they only pretend to be NW. They hold to false principles and don't acknowledge the true spirit of the vow. Looking at the NW in its current state you'll maybe find a handful of true NW men, if so many. Yes, they are even weaker then I assumed heretofore. And these guys formerly known as NW have just killed one of the few true NW guys around there.

Stark@heart, on 28 November 2011 - 08:20 PM, said:

I don't think they were meant to be monks, only that they would father no children. That's what whores are for.

So - sex with Ho or sex with consent that no child be born ( I think Ygritte was smart enough to be drinking Moon Tea, she knows better than Jon that Winter is Coming with all the wrights and Others about)

That's a rather cold, even cynical view, imho. Men need love just as much/ or even more then they need sex. You can't deny men emotional connections to other people. And more likely then not a man will form an inner bond with a woman. A relationship with a woman differs from a relationship to a man. (Well, probably, I wouldn't know, but I do know that for me as a woman a relationship to a man, whether he is a friend or a lover is different to a relationship with a woman. Men give another perspective, they are different which makes it interesting.) To reduce these kind of relationships to sex only is to cripple human beings emotionally, imho.

The ideal NW guy would of course only feel connected with his so-imagined "brothers". While there may be a certain camaraderie, a kind of professional relationship, they're still not family or even friends to each other.

They didn't chose these "brothers" of theirs and often they're very different personalities with a very different background thrown together. It's then expected that they forsake their family and form a kind of family bond with their "brothers". But that expectation can hardly hold up to reality. It didn't surprise me at all that Jon didn't find true friends in the NW. The closest he comes to a friend is Sam and even then the dynamic of their relationship is asymmetric.

[kissdbyfire]

Ghost Rider, on 29 November 2011 - 04:58 AM, said:

Yes, I know that this explanation is given, but for me it's not satisfactory. Sure, the NW man will not involve himself on behalf of that family if he hasn't got one. Though: as we know everybody at the Wall already has families! They have parents, siblings, they may even have a wife or a son. The NW then expects them to forsake these families who are far away from them and kind of pretend they don't exist. Which is quite unrealistic as we have seen in Jon's case. And Jon is a pretty honorable guy.

Now instead of having these families far away, let's imagine, they have them at the Wall. Why would they then be unwilling to support the NW? There would be whole families in support of the NW instead of  just the men, enabling these men to enjoy true feelings of happiness. And they would have a much better reason to protect the Wall then just a vow (words are wind!), they'd protect their families. To most people their families are much more valuable then an oath.


Thank you, Tze! You put my mind at ease. Since I think there is a story-related reason for Sam to have sworn the oath in front of a weirwood other then just showing just how strong Jon's influence is on him, I want to propose how NW is defined in my view:

True NW must swear in front of a Hearttree. Only then will the magic be invoked that transforms these persons into the Watcher on the Walls. Being true NW enables them to cross the magical wards of the weirwood door. I suspect other magical protections as well, but we will see. They have to hold true however to the essence of the vow (to protect the realm of men). I'm not entirely sure though, how it could possibly be verified whether they acted against the very spirit, since it is very much a matter of the heart. Old Nan said, the Wall holds as long the NW will be true. If so, it is in dire peril.

Coming from that definition, Bowen Marsh & cronies are no NW at all, they only pretend to be NW. They hold to false principles and don't acknowledge the true spirit of the vow. Looking at the NW in its current state you'll maybe find a handful of true NW men, if so many. Yes, they are even weaker then I assumed heretofore. And these guys formerly known as NW have just killed one of the few true NW guys around there.


That's a rather cold, even cynical view, imho. Men need love just as much/ or even more then they need sex. You can't deny men emotional connections to other people. And more likely then not a man will form an inner bond with a woman. A relationship with a woman differs from a relationship to a man. (Well, probably, I wouldn't know, but I do know that for me as a woman a relationship to a man, whether he is a friend or a lover is different to a relationship with a woman. Men give another perspective, they are different which makes it interesting.) To reduce these kind of relationships to sex only is to cripple human beings emotionally, imho.

The ideal NW guy would of course only feel connected with his so-imagined "brothers". While there may be a certain camaraderie, a kind of professional relationship, they're still not family or even friends to each other.

They didn't chose these "brothers" of theirs and often they're very different personalities with a very different background thrown together. It's then expected that they forsake their family and form a kind of family bond with their "brothers". But that expectation can hardly hold up to reality. It didn't surprise me at all that Jon didn't find true friends in the NW. The closest he comes to a friend is Sam and even then the dynamic of their relationship is asymmetric.

Nice one, Ghost Rider. There are, however, a couple of points where I disagree with you...

"True NW must swear in front of a Hearttree" - I'm not sure I understood this the way you meant it. If I did, I disagree. For instance, I'd assume maester Aemon didn't make his vows in front of a hearttree; I consider him one of the truest among the NW men.

"It didn't surprise me at all that Jon didn't find true friends in the NW. The closest he comes to a friend is Sam and even then the dynamic of their relationship is asymmetric." - I disagree with this as well. I think Jon did make true friends in the NW. Sam, Grenn, Pyp, and there's another name I want to add here but can't remember... The guy who becomes a builder, I think. ARYa_Nym, help! :-)
I think these guys have become Jon's true friends; as to the friendship being asymetric, I don't see it as a big deal. I think it means even more if it is 'asymetric'. It's too easy to become friends with someone who is just like us. It's similar to what maester Aemon says about honour and duty - 'it's easy do do the honourable thing when nothing is really demanded of you' (paraphrasing); and Eddard telling Bran a man can only be brave when he's afraid.

[Black Crow]

mor2, on 28 November 2011 - 10:20 PM, said:

I recently reread  the great ranging part and noticed that its was raining beyond the wall, which means the temp is above freezing, I think it's safe to assume that what keeps the wall standing is magic, not physics. so it's just the regular MEL annoyance

btw, didnt the watchmen light fires up there?

The prevalence of snow really comes from the TV version. Its cold out there but most of the time as you note it rained rather than snowed and it was only the night that the White Walkers came that the snow really started to set in.

As to the Wall, yes there's unquestionably an awful lot of magic involved in the building of it and there must be pretty massive foundations underneath it, but the sheer bulk of all that cold ice must go a long way to keeping it intact. It has occurred to me before that if Castle Black was only a mile further back it would be a lot warmer and more comfortable than nestling up against that oversized chiller unit.

[ARYa_Nym]

Kissdbyfire, on 29 November 2011 - 08:14 AM, said:

"It didn't surprise me at all that Jon didn't find true friends in the NW. The closest he comes to a friend is Sam and even then the dynamic of their relationship is asymmetric." - I disagree with this as well. I think Jon did make true friends in the NW. Sam, Grenn, Pyp, and there's another name I want to add here but can't remember... The guy who becomes a builder, I think. ARYa_Nym, help! :-)

I don't know about a builder but Dolorous Edd is his friend. I hope he lives.