How many wildlings are left by the end Dance?

[Ravenkingsamurai]

I've often been confused about comments by people talking about 30,000+ wildlings helping Jon on the wall, when according to what I've read from Dance there is nowhere near that many wildlings.

2,000 wildlings are captured by Stannis and NW after castle Black.

3,000 are with Tormund giantsbane.

a similar number with the weeper at the bridge of skulls ( no exact number given.)

6,000 at Hardhome ( although many of them have drowned, frozen, died of starvation e.c.t.)

Unknown number at the valley of the Thenns ( probibly doomed, if not already dead due to Others.)

Altogether, by this count, that's less than 15,000 wildlings still alive. Is this accurate? or have i missed something?

[Bright Blue Eyes]

It's unknown. Mance's host at the Battle of the Wall consisted of ~100,000. But that was an entire people, not only warriors. 20,000-30,000 of them were battle-ready adults. So, we have an upper limit. But no lower limit, since losses can't be quantified.

Most of them went with Mother Mole or the Weeper, numbers unknown. Where did you get your numbers?

Tormund gathered only a minority.

[Ravenkingsamurai]

It's unknown. Mance's host at the Battle of the Wall consisted of ~100,000. But that was an entire people, not only warriors. 20,000-30,000 of them were battle-ready adults. So, we have an upper limit. But no lower limit, since losses can't be quantified.

Most of them went with Mother Mole or the Weeper, numbers unknown. Where did you get your numbers?

Tormund gathered only a minority.

In dance, it specifically says that just under 2,000 wildlings were captured by Stannis' forces. When Tormund and his people are allowed through, Bowen marsh counts 3,100 Wildlings ( including 1,000 warriors, including spear wives, and 100 male hostages.)

Tormund mentions that the weeper has a host similar, if not slightly larger than his own, and it's stated that 6,000 wildlings are at Hardhome. No idea how many are at the valley of the Thenns.Altogether, thats between 15,000-20,000 at most. I don't have the exact page numbers on me, although i will check.

[Free Northman]

Very few. The Wildlings are insignificant to the extent that any of Winterfell's bannermen rules far more people than Mance Rayder ever did.

So while some readers celebrate Mance as some type of King - and even dream of Jon becoming King of the Wildlings - the reality is that this would be less impressive than Jon becoming the next Lord of Karhold, or Torhenn's Square or Hornwood.

The Wildlings were insignificant when they were at full strength, and are even more insignificant now.

[The Dragon has three heads]

Double

[The Dragon has three heads]

Hardly insignificant.

That's 70,000(!) soon to be weights and a whole people effectively wiped from westeros, IMO the last of the first men free from post andal influence.

It's the equivalent-in gravitas if not numbers, as the loss of a whole lordship.

Gone. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 stags.

That's hardly insignificant.

[Federico]

On seemingly inconsistent numbers of people, soldiers, and other nouns, GRRM has stated in interviews that his writing strives to mimic history. In one example, he cited the Battle of Astincourt (sp?), between the French and English, led by Henry V. Both sides reported vastly different troop numbers.

GRRM has gone to some length to establish Bowen as a credible numbers (ie estimates) person. I'd been wondering if GRRM would use that to fool us whereby Bowen reports some figure that turns out to be horribly wrong, with dire consequences. This would show that not are most estimates and anecdotes are inaccurate but even the most trusted sources of estimates can be way off at times too.

With Jon's last chapter in aDwD, one might expect this anticipation not to manifest. Then again, this anticipation might suggest Bowen's fate might vary from the obvious choices suggested in Jon's last chapter in aDwD.

[Ravenkingsamurai]

On seemingly inconsistent numbers of people, soldiers, and other nouns, GRRM has stated in interviews that his writing strives to mimic history. In one example, he cited the Battle of Astincourt (sp?), between the French and English, led by Henry V. Both sides reported vastly different troop numbers.

GRRM has gone to some length to establish Bowen as a credible numbers (ie estimates) person. I'd been wondering if GRRM would use that to fool us whereby Bowen reports some figure that turns out to be horribly wrong, with dire consequences. This would show that not are most estimates and anecdotes are inaccurate but even the most trusted sources of estimates can be way off at times too.

With Jon's last chapter in aDwD, one might expect this anticipation not to manifest. Then again, this anticipation might suggest Bowen's fate might vary from the obvious choices suggested in Jon's last chapter in aDwD.

I see no credible reason that Bowen Marsh would miscount/exaggerate the number of wildlings-and it would also seem he used at tally. Many of the estimates are also done by Jon ( who by Westerosi standards is pretty credible) and by Tormund giantsbane-who's more likely to over exaggerate as opposed to diminish. So i'm sticking to my view that there are around 20,000 wildlings.

[Ravenkingsamurai]

Hardly insignificant.

That's 70,000(!) soon to be weights and a whole people effectively wiped from westeros, IMO the last of the first men free from post andal influence.

It's the equivalent-in gravitas if not numbers, as the loss of a whole lordship.

Gone. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 stags.

That's hardly insignificant.

Good pint about the impending other invasion being made worse by the dead wildlings. But why do you think there's 70,000 wildlings?

[The Dragon has three heads]

Was using bright blue eyes post to base the numbers in.

Rough estimate was 100k wildings, 30k dead/lost/scattered, leaving 70k as the upper most estimate, even if it's half that, it's still a lot of walking corpses.

[The Holy Goat]

My guess is that betweeen the three big groups of Wildlings we know about (Tormund and the people of Mole's Town, Mother Mole, The Weeper), there are probably 16,000 Wildlings or so, a fourth of whom are combatants. But there's bound to be many more still out there who we don't know about and who is not accounted for, even if cold, starvation, wounds and the like have claimed many.

[joe42m1]

The wildlings were only a threat because the Night's Watch was so small and spread thin across the Wall. Combine that with being ignored or forgotten by the Seven Kingdoms, and the Wildling invasion becomes a serious problem.

Even if you had 50,000 battle-ready wildlings, most were armed with crude weapons and little armor. Even an army from south of the wall with half those numbers could likely win head to head (steel arms and armor, knights/heavy horse, and the discipline of professional soldiers).

Basically, the wildlings were a threat to the depleted Night's Watch but one of the Lords Paramount would likely have made quick work of them.

There is really no way to extrapolate how many are left because I would expect large numbers of wildlings just went off in small groups (like the ones found at the circle of weirwoods).