The Horn of Winter was never made to make the wall fall...

[Clegane'sPup]

On 11/18/2016 at 8:12 PM, aryagonnakill#2 said:

It's funny, this has nothing to do with your post, which as you say is entirely a joke anyway, but it made me realize, why the hell did Sam send them to Eastwatch, and not Shadow Tower?  Do they not have a single ship on the west coast?  That seems highly unlikely.

Edited for spelling

I had a couple serious posts in this tread. Just the last one was tongue-in cheek. lol, in answer to your questions I will continue

There doesn’t seem to be a port at Shadow Tower. A river is available. I guess that if the ship made it safely past the Iron Born the ship could drop anchor in the Bay of Ice and off load a dingy with an ice breaker attached to it. Of course there would need to be a horse included.  Maester Sam could work his way upriver to the Shadow Tower. Eventually abandoning the dingy and start riding the horse. I can see no reason that Davos would be there. Unless he and his charges booked passage from Skaggos on a ship with wings.

Glad I gave you a laugh. Laughter is good medicine.

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/emotional-health/laughter-is-the-best-medicine.htm

Now back to the serious business of the horn.

 

[cgrav]

The literary symbols contained in the horn lead me to believe that it has or had the power to bring on the Long Night. The crack in particular recalls the cracking of the moon that appears in both the AA and Qartheen dragon myths. And in many medieval epics, horns are magical things that can be heard for thousands of miles (see: Oliphaunt), also remiscent of Nissa Nissa's shriek.

 

And Jon pours "frozen fire" from it when he digs it up, implying a connection between the horn of Joramun and Dragons. Maybe HoJ is also Dragonbinder? Or one undoes the other's damage? 

[Red Man Racey]

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 0:26 AM, The Fattest Leech said:

I also think the horn Jon found at the Fist is the Horn of WInter/Joramun.

It was made of bronze and horn and covered in runes, but the bronze is cracked so it doesn't make a sound when Jon tries it.

Jon gives it to Sam and Sam takes it with him to the Citadel... when training as a Maester, bronze is one of your first links you forge. The bronze link is for astronomy and Jon and the north are both heavily associated with bronze, the stars and constallations (the Thief, the Ice Dragon, the Red Wanderer, etc). Bronze is used in the north above and beyond gold, which would be inferior up there. Also, horn is bone and bones remember... just like the North remembers.

Also, Jon and the North are heavily associated with Norse mythology and horns are very important in those myths. Many times, but not all, they are for drinking mead. Well, Jon gives the horn to Sam Tarly... of Horn Hill... and tells Sam to make a drinking horn out of it. How funny would it be if Sam fixed the horn and made a drinking cup out of it??? Or he blew it and did not think anything would happen... but 1,000 leagues away the wall crumbles??? (No, not funny, Leech!)

Anyway, there is more but this is the short version. The only issue that someone brought up in the past is other posters seem to think the horn left with the Cinnamon Wind because Sam took too long

The wall has already figuratively fallen because of the mutiny. Not sure how much will physically fall if the horn is blown.

This is why I think there is some relationship between the Horn of Joramun and the Norse myth of Jormungandr (or Jormungand) -- the World Serpent. Jormungandr was a child of Loki and is described as a huge serpent or dragon. Since there are already giants in the North it wouldn't make sense for the "giants" in the legend to refer to them, so it must mean something else. It could potentially mean some other exceptionally large creature, perhaps a dragon. And to tie back into the earthquake discussion others brought up, certain cultures attributed earthquakes to the movements of Jormungandr.

[The Fattest Leech]

6 hours ago, Red Man Racey said:

This is why I think there is some relationship between the Horn of Joramun and the Norse myth of Jormungandr (or Jormungand) -- the World Serpent. Jormungandr was a child of Loki and is described as a huge serpent or dragon. Since there are already giants in the North it wouldn't make sense for the "giants" in the legend to refer to them, so it must mean something else. It could potentially mean some other exceptionally large creature, perhaps a dragon. And to tie back into the earthquake discussion others brought up, certain cultures attributed earthquakes to the movements of Jormungandr.

Ack! I have been debating with myself whether or not to start writing up the connection between Bloodraven and Bran to the Yggdrasil, dragon chewing on the tree and the squirrel. I did do a write up on other shared Norse aspects and how it pairs with the north. I just find it so interesting and bottomless. 

[cgrav]

If you want some serious Norse connections, Bran is chock full. Yggdrasil grows from a well, just like the young weirwood at the Nightfort. There is a story in which Odin plants a sword into a tree called the Branstokkr, and only Sigmund can pull it out. That sword is later shattered and finally reforged on a third attempt, at the behest of Sigmund's son, Sigurd the Dragonslayer. Bran subdues a symbolic Odin when Summer takes on One Eye. 

 

Edit: the connection to world-snake Jormunandr is good, and supports the notion that it's the same horn as Dragonbinder.

[The Fattest Leech]

And to keep going with the Norse, Odin even had a "wighted" thrall type entity called an animine (spelling is wrong because I am on my phone, but not supposed to be, and I don't have my book to look it up) 

[Red Man Racey]

Another similarity that I see to the "wake giants from the earth" tale is Melisandre's "wake dragons from stone" prophecy. To me those two lines have similarities which seem intentional. As I said above the "giants" could potentially be dragons and earth=stone isn't such a stretch either. Could possibly be a difference in translation between two cultures relating the same story.

[ravenous reader]

On 11/15/2016 at 1:18 PM, GyantSpyder said:

Here's a crazy idea -

There's been some talk lately about how the free folk have noticed that some of the trees with faces carved on them, especially north of the wall, have not been weirwoods, but oaks and other taller, deciduous hardwoods - and how these faces seem angrier.

Maybe the Horn of Joramun is a sort of "ent-caller" that will awaken these trees so that they will break the wall down.

This meshes with the idea that the Children of the Forest at least at some point wanted to kill humanity and have either created or enlisted or seem to manipulate the Others for this purpose.

@Wizz-The-Smith and I have previously noted what we termed 'the martial aspect' of the trees, although we were uncertain whether this would take a more literal Tolkienesque rather than metaphorical form.  There is a great deal of symbolism surrounding the idea you suggest, especially the implied relation between the awakened trees and the Others:

5 hours ago, cgrav said:

The literary symbols contained in the horn lead me to believe that it has or had the power to bring on the Long Night. The crack in particular recalls the cracking of the moon that appears in both the AA and Qartheen dragon myths. And in many medieval epics, horns are magical things that can be heard for thousands of miles (see: Oliphaunt), also remiscent of Nissa Nissa's shriek.

And Jon pours "frozen fire" from it when he digs it up, implying a connection between the horn of Joramun and Dragons. Maybe HoJ is also Dragonbinder? Or one undoes the other's damage? 

The 'crack' also recalls the speech of the White Walkers which is likened to ice cracking:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking.

 

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

When he found the courage to look again, a long time had passed, and the ridge below was empty.

Additionally, the legend of Nissa Nissa is recalled in the sound of the clash of the pale swords of the White Walkers, evoking the scream of 'agony and ecstasy' which birthed 'Lightbringer':

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Ser Waymar met it with steel. When the blades met, there was no ring of metal on metal; only a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing, like an animal screaming in pain. Royce checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Another flurry of blows, and he fell back again.

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere.

Again and again the swords met, until Will wanted to cover his ears against the strange anguished keening of their clash. Ser Waymar was panting from the effort now, his breath steaming in the moonlight. His blade was white with frost; the Other's danced with pale blue light.

The 'strange anguished keening' also echoes the symbolism of  Widow's Wail, the daughter sword forged from Ice after Ned's death.

Traditionally, the hunting horn is an instrument the hunting leader uses to communicate and co-ordinate with his hounds and the rest of the hunting party.  Analogously, perhaps the horn Jon found, now in possession of Sam of Horn Hill (whose sigil is fittingly a striding huntsman with a horn), can be used to summon and/or ward off the Others somehow.  

I'm basing this impression on a pattern of symbolism I've traced whereby the Others are compared to hunters with their minions like a pack of hunting hounds -- or (dire)wolves:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

"Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—"

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

"Well," Bran said reluctantly, "yes, only …"

Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children."

Mysteriously, something else that I and some other readers have noted is the Others' resemblance to trees, particularly weirwoods.  Like weirwoods, they're even referred to rather pointedly as 'watchers' and stand in a circle mirroring the arrangement of the sacred grove of 9 weirwoods in the haunted forest:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere.

 

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery.

Could the horn send them a 'signal' of some kind?

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon VI

Perhaps it was all in the knowing. They had ridden past the end of the world; somehow that changed everything. Every shadow seemed darker, every sound more ominous. The trees pressed close and shut out the light of the setting sun. A thin crust of snow cracked beneath the hooves of their horses, with a sound like breaking bones. When the wind set the leaves to rustling, it was like a chilly finger tracing a path up Jon's spine. The Wall was at their backs, and only the gods knew what lay ahead.

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. Jon drew in a breath, and he saw Sam Tarly staring. Even in the wolfswood, you never found more than two or three of the white trees growing together; a grove of nine was unheard of. The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, bloodred on top, black rot beneath. The wide smooth trunks were bone pale, and nine faces stared inward. The dried sap that crusted in the eyes was red and hard as ruby. Bowen Marsh commanded them to leave their horses outside the circle. "This is a sacred place, we will not defile it."

When they entered the grove, Samwell Tarly turned slowly looking at each face in turn. No two were quite alike. "They're watching us," he whispered. "The old gods."

 

A Storm of Swords - Jon III

My vows, he'd thought, remembering the weirwood grove where he had said them, the nine great white trees in a circle, the carved red faces watching, listening.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon VII

Ahead he glimpsed a pale white trunk that could only be a weirwood, crowned with a head of dark red leaves. Jon Snow reached back and pulled Longclaw from his sheath. He looked to right and left, gave Satin and Horse a nod, watched them pass it on to the men beyond. They rushed the grove together, kicking through drifts of old snow with no sound but their breathing. Ghost ran with them, a white shadow at Jon's side.

The weirwoods rose in a circle around the edges of the clearing. There were nine, all roughly of the same age and size. Each one had a face carved into it, and no two faces were alike. Some were smiling, some were screaming, some were shouting at him. In the deepening glow their eyes looked black, but in daylight they would be blood-red, Jon knew. Eyes like Ghost's.

The fire in the center of the grove was a small sad thing, ashes and embers and a few broken branches burning slow and smoky. Even then, it had more life than the wildlings huddled near it. Only one of them reacted when Jon stepped from the brush. That was the child, who began to wail, clutching at his mother's ragged cloak. The woman raised her eyes and gasped. By then the grove was ringed by rangers, sliding past the bone-white trees, steel glinting in black-gloved hands, poised for slaughter.

This last one is interesting.  The way it's written gives rise to some ambiguity, so that the 'steel glinting in their black-gloved hands, poised for slaughter' might refer to the 'bone-white trees' in addition to the 'rangers.'  So, men of the Night's Watch are aligned with the rather martial trees as well as the Others -- all of whom are called 'watchers' at one time or another.

1 hour ago, Red Man Racey said:

Another similarity that I see to the "wake giants from the earth" tale is Melisandre's "wake dragons from stone" prophecy. To me those two lines have similarities which seem intentional. As I said above the "giants" could potentially be dragons and earth=stone isn't such a stretch either. Could possibly be a difference in translation between two cultures relating the same story.

Another intriguing possibility is that 'waking giants' refers to the green magic of the greenseers, who will somehow awaken the trees and/or Others to action as they seem to have done in the past:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

"To the walls," Asha Greyjoy told her men. She turned her own steps for the watchtower, with Tris Botley right behind her.

The wooden watchtower was the tallest thing this side of the mountains, rising twenty feet above the biggest sentinels and soldier pines in the surrounding woods. "There, Captain," said Cromm, when she made the platform. Asha saw only trees and shadows, the moonlit hills and the snowy peaks beyond. Then she realized that trees were creeping closer. "Oho," she laughed, "these mountain goats have cloaked themselves in pine boughs." The woods were on the move, creeping toward the castle like a slow green tide. She thought back to a tale she had heard as a child, about the children of the forest and their battles with the First Men, when the greenseers turned the trees to warriors.

"We cannot fight so many," Tris Botley said.

 

The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Coming of First Men

The hunters among the children—their wood dancers—became their warriors as well, but for all their secret arts of tree and leaf, they could only slow the First Men in their advance. The greenseers employed their arts, and tales say that they could call the beasts of marsh, forest, and air to fight on their behalf: direwolves and monstrous snowbears, cave lions and eagles, mammoths and serpents, and more. But the First Men proved too powerful, and the children are said to have been driven to a desperate act.

Legend says that the great floods that broke the land bridge that is now the Broken Arm and made the Neck a swamp were the work of the greenseers, who gathered at Moat Cailin to work dark magic. 

Weirwoods are frequently compared to pale stone giants (who might be awoken?):

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in a year, or ten, or fifty.

.

A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

Something about the way the raven screamed sent a shiver running up Bran's spine. I am almost a man grown, he had to remind himself. I have to be brave now.

But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants, monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind. "They are here."

The ranger drew his longsword.

This is a very strong passage in support of intermingled tree and Other symbolism.  Note they're described as hungry white shadows, ice-and-snow giants.  Interestingly, weirwoods are frequently described as 'crowned,' perhaps hinting at some connection to the greenseers and/or Kings of Winter?

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Theon I

Outside the snow still fell. The snowmen the squires had built had grown into monstrous giants, ten feet tall and hideously misshapen. White walls rose to either side as he and Rowan made their way to the godswood; the paths between keep and tower and hall had turned into a maze of icy trenches, shoveled out hourly to keep them clear. It was easy to get lost in that frozen labyrinth, but Theon Greyjoy knew every twist and turning.

Even the godswood was turning white. A film of ice had formed upon the pool beneath the heart tree, and the face carved into its pale trunk had grown a mustache of little icicles. At this hour they could not hope to have the old gods to themselves. Rowan pulled Theon away from the northmen praying before the tree, to a secluded spot back by the barracks wall, beside a pool of warm mud that stank of rotten eggs. Even the mud was icing up about the edges, Theon saw. "Winter is coming …"

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Sacrifice

"Aye," said Big Bucket Wull. "Red Rahloo means nothing here. You will only make the old gods angry. They are watching from their island."

The crofter's village stood between two lakes, the larger dotted with small wooded islands that punched up through the ice like the frozen fists of some drowned giant. From one such island rose a weirwood gnarled and ancient, its bole and branches white as the surrounding snows. Eight days ago Asha had walked out with Aly Mormont to have a closer look at its slitted red eyes and bloody mouth. It is only sap, she'd told herself, the red sap that flows inside these weirwoods. But her eyes were unconvinced; seeing was believing, and what they saw was frozen blood.

"You northmen brought these snows upon us," insisted Corliss Penny. "You and your demon trees. R'hllor will save us."

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran II

To a boy, Winterfell was a grey stone labyrinth of walls and towers and courtyards and tunnels spreading out in all directions. In the older parts of the castle, the halls slanted up and down so that you couldn't even be sure what floor you were on. The place had grown over the centuries like some monstrous stonetree, Maester Luwin told him once, and its branches were gnarled and thick and twisted, its roots sunk deep into the earth.

 

A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man

On the crown of the hill four-and-forty monstrous stone ribs rose from the earth like the trunks of great pale trees. The sight made Aeron's heart beat faster. Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he reigned here, Aeron recalled. Here he took his mermaid wife and planned his wars against the Storm God. From here he ruled both stone and salt, wearing robes of woven seaweed and a tall pale crown made from Nagga's teeth.

If Nagga is actually a weirwood, then 'waking a dragon from stone' might refer to the animation at the behest of some greenseer signal (e.g. that of the horn) of the weirwoods, perhaps resulting in something more literal than:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

The brothers on the wagons had seen this face as well, Jon did not doubt. No one spoke of it, but the message was plain to read for any man with eyes. Jon had once heard Mance Rayder say that most kneelers were sheep. "Now, a dog can herd a flock of sheep," the King-Beyond-the-Wall had said, "but free folk, well, some are shadowcats and some are stones. One kind prowls where they please and will tear your dogs to pieces. The other will not move at all unless you kick them." Neither shadowcats nor stones were like to give up the gods they had worshiped all their lives to bow down before one they hardly knew.

Just north of Mole's Town they came upon the third watcher, carved into the huge oak that marked the village perimeter, its deep eyes fixed upon the kingsroad. That is not a friendly face, Jon Snow reflected. The faces that the First Men and the children of the forest had carved into the weirwoods in eons past had stern or savage visages more oft than not, but the great oak looked especially angry, as if it were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them. Its wounds are as fresh as the wounds of the men who carved it.

 

[Clegane'sPup]

16 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

@Wizz-The-Smith and I have previously noted what we termed 'the martial aspect' of the trees, although we were uncertain whether this would take a more literal Tolkienesque rather than metaphorical form.  There is a great deal of symbolism surrounding the idea you suggest, especially the implied relation between the awakened trees and the Others:

The 'crack' also recalls the speech of the White Walkers which is likened to ice cracking:

Additionally, the legend of Nissa Nissa is recalled in the sound of the clash of the pale swords of the White Walkers, evoking the scream of 'agony and ecstasy' which birthed 'Lightbringer':

The 'strange anguished keening' also echoes the symbolism of  Widow's Wail, the daughter sword forged from Ice after Ned's death.

Traditionally, the hunting horn is an instrument the hunting leader uses to communicate and co-ordinate with his hounds and the rest of the hunting party.  Analogously, perhaps the horn Jon found, now in possession of Sam of Horn Hill (whose sigil is fittingly a striding huntsman with a horn), can be used to summon and/or ward off the Others somehow.  

I'm basing this impression on a pattern of symbolism I've traced whereby the Others are compared to hunters with their minions like a pack of hunting hounds -- or (dire)wolves:

Mysteriously, something else that I and some other readers have noted is the Others' resemblance to trees, particularly weirwoods.  Like weirwoods, they're even referred to rather pointedly as 'watchers' and stand in a circle mirroring the arrangement of the sacred grove of 9 weirwoods in the haunted forest:

Could the horn send them a 'signal' of some kind?

This last one is interesting.  The way it's written gives rise to some ambiguity, so that the 'steel glinting in their black-gloved hands, poised for slaughter' might refer to the 'bone-white trees' in addition to the 'rangers.'  So, men of the Night's Watch are aligned with the rather martial trees as well as the Others -- all of whom are called 'watchers' at one time or another.

Another intriguing possibility is that 'waking giants' refers to the green magic of the greenseers, who will somehow awaken the trees and/or Others to action as they seem to have done in the past:

Weirwoods are frequently compared to pale stone giants (who might be awoken?):

This is a very strong passage in support of intermingled tree and Other symbolism.  Note they're described as hungry white shadows, ice-and-snow giants.  Interestingly, weirwoods are frequently described as 'crowned,' perhaps hinting at some connection to the greenseers and/or Kings of Winter?

If Nagga is actually a weirwood, then 'waking a dragon from stone' might refer to the animation at the behest of some greenseer signal (e.g. that of the horn) of the weirwoods, perhaps resulting in something more literal than:

 

Okay, in my opinion you and I don't read the same books.We don't agree on much. Could or would you tell me whether you think that the cracked war  horn Jon gave Sam is the horn that when tooted will bring down the Wall?

A very simple question with hopefully a simple yes or no answer. Do you think Sam's horn is the horn that crashes the Wall.? Yea or nay.

 

[cgrav]

1 hour ago, Clegane'sPup said:

 

A very simple question with hopefully a simple yes or no answer. Do you think Sam's horn is the horn that crashes the Wall.? Yea or nay.

 

Well the symbols and themes are frankly a lot more interesting than the specific objects or events. 

I can only speak for myself, but it sounds like the horn could bring down the wall and a whole lot more. Meteors to be specific, from a subsequent pass of the comet.

I'd recommend LmL's podcasts on the mythology, they really add a huge amount of depth to the story. After listening to those, scenes like Jon's discovery of the horn are suddenly oozing with symbolism that hints strongly at certain plot/character developments. 

[Curled Finger]

Hmm, interesting discussion.  What do we know about any of these horns?   Mance's horn was taken from a giant's grave and seemed to do nothing when destroyed.   Sam's little broken horn is found in a cache of magic weaponry wrapped in a Nights Watch brother's cloak, Euron's horn has all the requisite magic horn adornments but seems to  burn the people who blow it from the inside out.   Have I missed any other important horns?   

We've already got a magic horn, but we've also got at least 15 magic swords in this story, too.  By that logic, coupled with the fact that Sam's little horn is found by a magic prince and his magic wolf wrapped in a Nights Watchman's cloak, I'm thinking it's magic.  

This earthquake talk is boss.  I'm tying it in with that screeching emitting from the caves in Hardhome.  I'm really hoping for a volcano to explain the presence of obsidian in the area.  We all know the wall is spell bound or spell founded or some damned spellery.  It makes perfect sense a little mended magic horn would be integral to the breaking of all that enchantment.   But why does The Wall actually need to fall?  

If The Wall falls there will be problems, but the main problem it represents in my mind, separation, is already being remedied by the Wildlings settling castles farther south than they've ever settled (that we know of).  It's clear The Others aren't really up for Neighborhood Watch and Home Owner Associations and I doubt there will be an end to all of this with some peaceful communion between The Others and pretty much anyone.  If The Others are finally defeated--no, this is a magic story--If The Others are finally vanquished (much better) there really won't be any need for a magic wall.   Does the Wall need to fall to allow The Others to run rampant south?  Does anyone really see these distance runners getting much farther than Last Hearth, maybe?   

[ravenous reader]

4 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Okay, in my opinion you and I don't read the same books.We don't agree on much. Could or would you tell me whether you think that the cracked war  horn Jon gave Sam is the horn that when tooted will bring down the Wall?

A very simple question with hopefully a simple yes or no answer. Do you think Sam's horn is the horn that crashes the Wall.? Yea or nay.

 

I follow the text where it leads me.  I don't know what you're following, but you're very rude.

'Yea or nay': Yea.

[Clegane'sPup]

8 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

I follow the text where it leads me.  I don't know what you're following, but you're very rude.

'Yea or nay': Yea.

Please do accept my sincerest apologies if you thought I was being offensively impolite or ill-mannered. I’m merely a proponent of brevity. Thank you for your answer.

[cgrav]

On 11/15/2016 at 11:18 AM, GyantSpyder said:

 

Maybe the Horn of Joramun is a sort of "ent-caller"

Walking trees are done. I think the Ent ship sailed with Bilbo and Gandalf.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

On 15.11.2016 at 2:33 AM, Ser Harly of Southwell said:

So after doing a bit of research it seems that there should be no reason to believe the Horn of Joramun would make the wall fall. In fact, according to the saying all it does is "wake giants from the earth." From this information it seems that people, inside the books, and us as well, jump to the conclusion that this means that the Horn will blow and the wall will fall. This is remarked on in TWOIAF

"The first King-Beyond-the-Wall, according to legend, was Joramun, who claimed to have a horn that would bring down the Wall when it woke "the giants from the earth." (That the Wall still stands says something of his claim, and perhaps even of his existence.)"

Thoughts? I think the horn, if it does anything, will only "wake giants from the earth," whatever that means, and will not make the wall fall. This idea of the horn making the wall to fall is a convenient legend, which Mance uses in his negotiations with Jon, and control of the Freefolk.

 

The thing is, you should not treat "The World of Ice and Fire" as the objective, accurate encyclopedia of the world. It's "History, as Yandel knows and understands it, and what he elects to reveal". To say succinctly, "The World of Ice and Fire" is not the history book, it's merely a history book.

And if something concerns the Wall and beyond, I'm more inclined to trust in Mance Rayder than in Maester Yandel, who doesn't even believe the Others are real ("the threats they face no longer come from Others, wights, giants, greenseers, wargs, skinchangers, and other monsters from children’s tales and legend").

Might be that Mance got it wrong, I grant you (and probably did, at least in part). I'm not arguing that point. But it's at least as likely that Yandel got it wrong.

[GyantSpyder]

16 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Okay, in my opinion you and I don't read the same books.We don't agree on much. Could or would you tell me whether you think that the cracked war  horn Jon gave Sam is the horn that when tooted will bring down the Wall?

A very simple question with hopefully a simple yes or no answer. Do you think Sam's horn is the horn that crashes the Wall.? Yea or nay.

 

I think one of the topics of conversation here, simply put, is whether the horn that brings down the wall is like a whistle from The Legend of Zelda, where you blow it and it just works - the Wall collapses or the Gate opens or whatever - or whether the horn actually does some other thing that might bring the Wall down as a result, like cause an earthquake or bring down meteors or summon monstrous creatures of some sort.

I think everybody is agreeing, or at least assuming, that magic horns are a thing and that the cracked horn Jon gave Sam is one of them.

But we're sort of like how Victarion should be, in that we can't read the warning labels and don't know exactly what these things actually do other than what people have told us. 

 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, cgrav said:

Walking trees are done. I think the Ent ship sailed with Bilbo and Gandalf.

Subconsciously, they're not done for GRRM.  Tolkienesque tree personification and animation imagery permeates the text.

The 'walking trees' in this case are the 'white walkers' otherwise known as the 'Others.'

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.

Note there is a fluidity between tree and water states.  'Green magic' can transform 'earth'=trees to 'water' and vice versa:

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Bran II

Bran was almost certain he had never heard this story. "Did he have green dreams like Jojen?"

"No," said Meera, "but he could breathe mud and run on leaves, and change earth to water and water to earth with no more than a whispered word. He could talk to trees and weave words and make castles appear and disappear."

"I wish I could," Bran said plaintively. "When does he meet the tree knight?"

The Others are described as a rising tide or threatening flood.  In this scenario, the wall represents the dam or 'weir' (as in 'weirwood') holding back the 'waters', or 'trees' depending on your perspective:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell I

"No. I could read the books, but . . . a m-maester must be a healer and b-b-blood makes me faint." He held out a shaky hand for Jon to see. "I'm Sam the Scared, not Sam the Slayer."

"Scared? Of what? The chidings of old men? Sam, you saw the wights come swarming up the Fist, a tide of living dead men with black hands and bright blue eyes. You slew an Other."

Should the horn summon the Others -- summon a rising tide -- then the Wall falling is equivalent to the dam breaking.

 

21 minutes ago, GyantSpyder said:

I think one of the topics of conversation here, simply put, is whether the horn that brings down the wall is like a whistle from The Legend of Zelda, where you blow it and it just works - the Wall collapses or the Gate opens or whatever - or whether the horn actually does some other thing that might bring the Wall down as a result, like cause an earthquake or bring down meteors or summon monstrous creatures of some sort.

I think everybody is agreeing, or at least assuming, that magic horns are a thing and that the cracked horn Jon gave Sam is one of them.

But we're sort of like how Victarion should be, in that we can't read the warning labels and don't know exactly what these things actually do other than what people have told us. 

 

I'm leaning towards the second option.

 

[GyantSpyder]

1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

the dam or 'weir' (as in 'weirwood')

Wow - this blew my mind, and I can't believe I hadn't figured that out. The weirwoods as a dam regulating the flow of humanity makes a ton of sense (that or as a humanity fishing trap).

Certainly if you think of the weirwoods as a "weir," it makes sense that humanity hasn't technologically advanced in thousands of years.

[ravenous reader]

47 minutes ago, GyantSpyder said:

Wow - this blew my mind, and I can't believe I hadn't figured that out. The weirwoods as a dam regulating the flow of humanity makes a ton of sense (that or as a humanity fishing trap).

Thanks!  The interplay (the 'flow' principle) between the earth (='the green') and humanity is reflected in how 'the Dothraki sea' refers both to the environment as well as the human population:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

… until the day of her wedding came at last.

The ceremony began at dawn and continued until dusk, an endless day of drinking and feasting and fighting. A mighty earthen ramp had been raised amid the grass palaces, and there Dany was seated beside Khal Drogo, above the seething sea of Dothraki. She had never seen so many people in one place, nor people so strange and frightening. 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"The Dothraki sea," Ser Jorah Mormont said as he reined to a halt beside her on the top of the ridge. Beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached to the distant horizon and beyond. It was a sea, Dany thought. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless grasses, the tall blades rippling like waves when the winds blew. "It's so green," she said.

"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed. "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end."

That thought gave Dany the shivers. "I don't want to talk about that now," she said. "It's so beautiful here, I don't want to think about everything dying."

If you're interested in reading any more of my rambling meditations built on my green sea/green see pun, this is my favorite post in which I muse on the deeper symbolic significance of Patchface's 'under the sea'.  @LmL will also be incorporating this idea of mine in an upcoming podcast/essay of his, so look out for that.

The idea of populations exerting pressure on the environment -- overflowing and consuming it -- and the environment pushing back with an ice flow -- preserving itself -- after being 'under fire' too long from humanity is echoed here:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

And they did sing. They sang in True Tongue, so Bran could not understand the words, but their voices were as pure as winter air. "Where are the rest of you?" Bran asked Leaf, once.

"Gone down into the earth," she answered. "Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."

Assuming deer is a fire symbol (there is plenty of evidence for this, e.g. Stannis's fiery stag consumed by the heart of fire, the horned lords who are fiery greenseers, etc.) and wolf is an ice symbol, then the idea communicated is that there ought to be a balance between the two, rather than ascendancy of any one of the parties (i.e. vs. that commonly advocated by those I refer to as 'Targ-besotted' who are hoping for a Targ restoration with Jon at the helm and hold all things fire in the highest estimation).  On the contrary, the deer overrunning the world are no less 'evil' than the wolves sweeping over the earth (in a moving wolf or ice 'pack'!) in order to preserve the environmental balance, just as the dragons are no less destructive than the Others.  

47 minutes ago, GyantSpyder said:

Certainly if you think of the weirwoods as a "weir," it makes sense that humanity hasn't technologically advanced in thousands of years.

Can you elaborate?

[the trees have eyes]

On 15/11/2016 at 2:14 AM, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Doesn't "wake the giants from the earth" sound like a metaphor for an earthquake? That could be what GRRM was going for, and I could see an earthquake bringing the Wall down for sure.

It does.  We know that, at least in terms of mythology, the CotF had the power to sunder Westeros from Essos creating the broken arm of Dorne and the Stepstones and, less successfully, to bring the hammer of the waters down on The Neck.  So bringing down a Wall, however large and magical in nature, should fit into the scheme of things if you believe the stories have some truth behind them.

I'm torn on magical objects in general in ASOIAF.  GRRM has said he likes to keep magic fluid and mysterious not bound up in "special" objects like wizards' staves or magic rings - or horns for that matter.  But he did give us Valyrian steel, glass candles and a truly mysterious/magical sword in Dawn so a magic horn is a possibility. 

On balance though I can't see how it fits with any known magics or the idea of blood sacrifice or there being a price to be paid for magic.  And why would the CotF or greenseers need a horn?  If they didn't make the horn, who did and why and why would the horn be in the possession of a wildling King?  It all feels too unlikely to me.

On 15/11/2016 at 4:35 AM, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Buddy, I would be squealing of fangirl excitement if turned out to be Ice Dragons  For some reason I really want to see one in the series.

Hm...so you're saying the horn is to call giants to the aid of the person blowing it? That's possible.

Joramun (I think it's the same one) was supposed to have joined hands with the Brandon Stark of the time in Winterfell to defeat the Night's King. If we assume the NK was allied with the Others, Joramun could have possibly called on the giants to help if his people were getting killed.

The possibility I think is most likely that the Horn of Winter may end up calling the Others themselves, analogous to how the dragon horn Euron has can be used to control dragons. It's called the Horn of "Winter", after all. Though in that case it's most probably not just a simple toot of the horn - blood sacrifice or some magic could be involved.

Interesting.  Given the Others appeared shortly before the start of our story are we to assume that someone found and blew the horn but then left it for Jon and Ghost to find?  More questions than answers!

On 17/11/2016 at 2:24 AM, ShimShim said:

If I remember correctly, Jon or someone else says that the cloak covering the stash wasn't very old, not falling apart. So, the things must have been placed there somewhat recently. Now, I have a feeling that Benjen, might have had a feeling that maybe there was more out there far north other than wildlings, and might be one of the people who visited the castle black library, reading about the past, about dealings with the children and dragonglass. I suspect that Benjen might have been the one that left the dragonglass stash (where he got it, i have no idea)....Now whether the horn he left is actually the horn of winter and if he new what it was, i doubt that. But if he did, did he hide it in a place he new maybe a black brother would find it? Did he not suspect it might have been found by wildlings? Those are my questions. 

Benjen is First Ranger.  I doubt he spent much time in the library or that he believed in the Horn of Joramum / Winter when Master Aemon seems to consider it a legend.  I'm loath to subscribe to the "It was Bloodraven what did it" school of history but the way the cloak was hidden and the way Ghost found something buried, or more likely was led to it, speaks to outside intervention.  Who buried it and why is one of the longest running puzzles in story.

On 18/11/2016 at 3:38 PM, aryagonnakill#2 said:

It's possible, but the same situation applies to Sam & Gilly as it did to Sam being at the back of the line leaving the fist.  Sam and Gilly are alone and vulnerable, and seemingly moving much slower than the other rangers who continued on to Castle Black.

We also cannot ignore the baby.  Gilly is convinced that is what they are after, and given how they appear to have a deal for the babies that seems like a logical conclusion to make.  

Old Nan once said that the WW's feed their undead armies with the blood of babes.  I personally do not think the babies are turned into WW's, I think they are sacrifices to raise the dead.  This would jive with Old Nans statement, and the often repeated line, "only death can pay for life"  It's the same thing MMD did to Drago.  Only the WW's then skinchange the dead after they raise them.

Agree with most of this.  The idea that the wights are mindless but skinchanged is tricky to get onboard with: this feels plausible individuallly, but there were hundreds if not thousands on the Fist of the First Men so they must have some independent motivations with the Others directing with more of a light touch than we see with Bran effectively losing himself to control Summer (and only Summer).  What's interesting is to consider how much of their memories the wights retain (Beric and Catelyn lose something of themselves after short periods of death) so would Othor and Jaffer retain their memories for the Others to tap into and then use their wight foot soldiers as effectively as possible.