A Great Lord Commander of the Nights Watch?

[House Beaudreau]

I've discussed and seen many discussions on here about why the Nights Watch sucks so bad?  It has always got me thinking that I would make a better Lord Commander than a lot of these bozos.

Pretty much since Aegon's conquest of Westeros the Nights Watch has been declining in manpower, support, and reputation.  Lord Commander Hoare was leader when Aegon came to Westeros and stayed neutral and watch his brother, kin and house completely wiped out by Aegon. He reportedly had ten thousand men in the nights watch at the time so maybe five thousand fighting men, mounted and when trade considering the watch was made up of a lot of younger son of noble houses, knights and brothers of the biggest northern houses including house Stark and the King in the North at the time. However since then the Watch has been on decline and it doesn't really seem like anyone did anything about it. Jack Musgood or Sleepy Jack was pretty bad, and we don't know a lot about any particular lord commander after the conquest but Bloodraven was one of them but he was probably up to some other shit than making the watch stronger.

Here's what I would do, if I were chosen as Lord Commander ideally sometime between 150-200 AC. 

Granted I'm not a military or economic genus and I know little of the ways of wars, so correct me if I'm wrong.

  First order of business: establish more diplomacy with the free folk. We've heard that there is some trading between the Nights watch and the free folk but not on a large scale. there's also some evidence to suggest some trade goes on between the free folk and the Free cites. Gaining new allies and trying to make peace with the known raiders and some of the larger clans would go a long way at making the Watch strong again. Raiding south of the wall seems to be done by most raiders to take weapons and good the free folk can get access to. Some take coin and riches but most are after Weapons and goods. There doesn't seem to be shortage of women north of the wall, so it seems like stealing daughters is more a tradition and good sport for the braver raiders. Putting a stop to the majority of raids and making peace with the free folk would allow you to accomplish so many things.

Second Order: make the Builders the greatest branch of the Nights Watch and start harvesting as many resources as the Watch can and that the North has to offer. If peace is made with the free folk you could start gathering up so many things. like wood, stone, mining etc. Plus the more Builders in the Watch the easier it would be to maintain all the castles on the wall and not continuously reduce the number of maned castles on the wall. This would also come in handy in my later plans.  

Third order: Start trading with the free cities on a large scale. East-watch has a fleet and with a endless supply of timber in the North the nights watch could create many ships for extremely cheap because they wouldn't need the coin to buy the timber. There are several trading ports that East-watch could easily reach and could be reached in turn like Bravos, Lorath, Pentos, Ibben and even Tyrosh, Myr and Lys. Norvos and Qohor could also be possible with relationships with Over land traders. The follow are items that are the Watch could aquire easily and have a abundance of that would be worth lots of coin and goods in trade.  

• Timber, Lumber, firewood. Bravos imports all there wood for ships, and firewood. 
• Stone. The stone from the mountains in the gift and north of the wall would provide endless amounts of Stone to sell to every single free city in theory, especially Bravos, Pentos, and Lorath. These being the easiest ports.
• Ice, Fresh Water.
• Wild game unique to the North. Deer, Elk, Snow bear, Shadow cats, Mammoths etc. This would be valuable to both the Free Cites and The Watch.
• Animal pelts and skins. 
• Mined goods like Bronze and Iron and other gems and metals like silver or gold found North of the wall. Trade with the Free Folk would benefit them in a great way also for example Thenn could sell there bronze surplus to the watch in exchange for iron and steel or coin.
• Whale, Whale Oil. It seems to me that the only large whaling operation in the world is the Ibbense. They probably have the market cornered, the Nights Watch could be the next big whaling operation.
• Free folk goods, like Amber, Mead, honey, Bone, antler, skins, furs etc.   
• Long shot Trades, Image how much the Slavers in Meereen would pay for a Mammoth for their Fighting pits?    

once peace and some trading was happening at the Wall. It would make the rest of my plans way easier.

• Re-settle the gift and new gift and establish new lords on this Land. Ned and Benjen had this idea, it couldnt have been the first time someone thought about doing this. You would have to coordinate with the Umbers, Karstarks, Starks, and Boltons for sure but it would be in everyones best interest to keep the gift strong. With a strong corp of builders building new castles and towns in the gift would be fairly easy over a few decades.
• Making peace with the Free folk clans would sort of, maybe Civilize them and perhaps some cities would start springing up North of the wall. 

All of the things listed above would make the watch stronger which would increase recruitment and reputation. any thoughts? What else could you do or is all this just crazy. I don't think it would be. Making peace with the Free folk seems to be the hardest task. but Jon was able to do it when tensions were highest. It could be done in quiet times in the history. 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

I think that the Night's Watch is like the Westerosi Jedi order and that the nonsensical rules were the reasons of its decline. I think that in order for the Watch to be great again it has to be reforged. 

[Lord Lannister]

The fundamental flaw is the Night's Watch is penal colony that consists of criminal conscripts led by disgraced nobles. There are few exceptions to this. Most would say Jeor Mormont and Jon Snow were among them. What did that earn them? They were murdered by the men they led. They've been scraping the bottom of the barrel so long, the stories of honor and nobility have faded into the past, and the honorable people that might have joined, instead find something else honorable to do.

[Adam Yozza]

50 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

The fundamental flaw is the Night's Watch is penal colony that consists of criminal conscripts led by disgraced nobles. There are few exceptions to this. Most would say Jeor Mormont and Jon Snow were among them. What did that earn them? They were murdered by the men they led. They've been scraping the bottom of the barrel so long, the stories of honor and nobility have faded into the past, and the honorable people that might have joined, instead find something else honorable to do.

This; you still get the odd people who join out of honour like Jon, Jeor Mormont, Waymar Royce, Donal Noye and presumably Denys Mallister. But most of the Watch is made up of either criminals or people who have nowhere else to go like Sam.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

The Night's Watch adjusted itself according to the needs of the times.  There was no need to maintain a large and expensive standing army just to keep out the wildlings.  It's economics.  The damage that the wildlings do with their raidings do not justify the expense of maintaining a large garrison at each of the forts.  The threat has to be large enough to justify the expense.  It was not.

The relationship problem between the kingdom and the wildlings is the wildlings.  The wildlings don't want to bend the knee, which really means do not want to abide by the laws of the seven kingdoms.  Fine.  Just stay out of the kindom and there will be no trouble.  But no, they refused to honor the boundary and made raids on the law abiding people on the other side of the wall to steal what they couldn't make.  The wildlings were and are the problem. 

[bilplat]

On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 7:28 PM, Lame Lothar Frey said:

The Night's Watch adjusted itself according to the needs of the times.  There was no need to maintain a large and expensive standing army just to keep out the wildlings.  It's economics.  The damage that the wildlings do with their raidings do not justify the expense of maintaining a large garrison at each of the forts.  The threat has to be large enough to justify the expense.  It was not.

The relationship problem between the kingdom and the wildlings is the wildlings.  The wildlings don't want to bend the knee, which really means do not want to abide by the laws of the seven kingdoms.  Fine.  Just stay out of the kindom and there will be no trouble.  But no, they refused to honor the boundary and made raids on the law abiding people on the other side of the wall to steal what they couldn't make.  The wildlings were and are the problem. 

 

Check your perspective. Don't want to abide by the laws of the seven kingdoms? Would you like to be in a society where your overlord has complete control over your life? Refused to honor the boundary? If someone built a wall dividing your backyard in half without your permission, would you feel compelled to honor the boundary? Not trying to justify raidings, but you can't place the responsibility of the horrible relationship between the Night's Watch and the wildlings solely on the wildlings. This is why its so easy for most readers to sympathize with Jon's efforts to unite the kingdoms and the wildlings.

 

But back to the original topic: I think you're spot on when you say that the NW adjusts itself according to the needs of the times. I reckon if the threat of the Others never dwindled, the NW wouldn't have either.

[Universal Sword Donor]

Opening significant cultural and trade ties with the Free Folk is going to lead to a direct decline in support coming from the Northern lords. 

[Winter prince]

2 hours ago, bilplat said:

 

Check your perspective. Don't want to abide by the laws of the seven kingdoms? Would you like to be in a society where your overlord has complete control over your life? Refused to honor the boundary? If someone built a wall dividing your backyard in half without your permission, would you feel compelled to honor the boundary? Not trying to justify raidings, but you can't place the responsibility of the horrible relationship between the Night's Watch and the wildlings solely on the wildlings. This is why its so easy for most readers to sympathize with Jon's efforts to unite the kingdoms and the wildlings.

 

But back to the original topic: I think you're spot on when you say that the NW adjusts itself according to the needs of the times. I reckon if the threat of the Others never dwindled, the NW wouldn't have either.

The wall has stood for thousands of years and most likely nothing existed North of the wall after the long night for a long time, you know with the whole apocalypse level disaster thing.  They chose to settle North of the wall so they could be free, and yes it avoids feudal lords, but that choice does not entitle them to raid and pillage villages that live under an "overlord".  It's easy to sympathize with the wildlings because they are humanized through the eyes of Jon and we know there is nothing but death for them North of the wall. 

[bilplat]

1 hour ago, Winter prince said:

The wall has stood for thousands of years and most likely nothing existed North of the wall after the long night for a long time, you know with the whole apocalypse level disaster thing.  They chose to settle North of the wall so they could be free, and yes it avoids feudal lords, but that choice does not entitle them to raid and pillage villages that live under an "overlord".  It's easy to sympathize with the wildlings because they are humanized through the eyes of Jon and we know there is nothing but death for them North of the wall. 

Their ancestors chose. Now they're stuck with their fate. I don't blame them for trying to change it. Besides, raiding and pillaging happens plenty in the seven kingdoms without wildling help, arguably with less reason.

Why'd you put quotes around overlord? Its definition perfectly fits.

Late addition: Yeah, it's easy for us to sympathize with the wildlings for the reasons you stated, but also consider that it's easy for us to sympathize with people south of the Wall because they are humanized by near every POV (including Jon's). And being a lover of winter myself, paired with the Thenn's ability to thrive in the north, I don't "know there is nothing but death for them north of the Wall" (until those Others come, obvs).

[Coolbeard the Exile]

On 2017-04-09 at 9:20 PM, House Beaudreau said:

I've discussed and seen many discussions on here about why the Nights Watch sucks so bad?  It has always got me thinking that I would make a better Lord Commander than a lot of these bozos.

Pretty much since Aegon's conquest of Westeros the Nights Watch has been declining in manpower, support, and reputation.  Lord Commander Hoare was leader when Aegon came to Westeros and stayed neutral and watch his brother, kin and house completely wiped out by Aegon. He reportedly had ten thousand men in the nights watch at the time so maybe five thousand fighting men, mounted and when trade considering the watch was made up of a lot of younger son of noble houses, knights and brothers of the biggest northern houses including house Stark and the King in the North at the time. However since then the Watch has been on decline and it doesn't really seem like anyone did anything about it. Jack Musgood or Sleepy Jack was pretty bad, and we don't know a lot about any particular lord commander after the conquest but Bloodraven was one of them but he was probably up to some other shit than making the watch stronger.

Here's what I would do, if I were chosen as Lord Commander ideally sometime between 150-200 AC. 

Granted I'm not a military or economic genus and I know little of the ways of wars, so correct me if I'm wrong.

  First order of business: establish more diplomacy with the free folk. We've heard that there is some trading between the Nights watch and the free folk but not on a large scale. there's also some evidence to suggest some trade goes on between the free folk and the Free cites. Gaining new allies and trying to make peace with the known raiders and some of the larger clans would go a long way at making the Watch strong again. Raiding south of the wall seems to be done by most raiders to take weapons and good the free folk can get access to. Some take coin and riches but most are after Weapons and goods. There doesn't seem to be shortage of women north of the wall, so it seems like stealing daughters is more a tradition and good sport for the braver raiders. Putting a stop to the majority of raids and making peace with the free folk would allow you to accomplish so many things.

Second Order: make the Builders the greatest branch of the Nights Watch and start harvesting as many resources as the Watch can and that the North has to offer. If peace is made with the free folk you could start gathering up so many things. like wood, stone, mining etc. Plus the more Builders in the Watch the easier it would be to maintain all the castles on the wall and not continuously reduce the number of maned castles on the wall. This would also come in handy in my later plans.  

Third order: Start trading with the free cities on a large scale. East-watch has a fleet and with a endless supply of timber in the North the nights watch could create many ships for extremely cheap because they wouldn't need the coin to buy the timber. There are several trading ports that East-watch could easily reach and could be reached in turn like Bravos, Lorath, Pentos, Ibben and even Tyrosh, Myr and Lys. Norvos and Qohor could also be possible with relationships with Over land traders. The follow are items that are the Watch could aquire easily and have a abundance of that would be worth lots of coin and goods in trade.  

• Timber, Lumber, firewood. Bravos imports all there wood for ships, and firewood. 
• Stone. The stone from the mountains in the gift and north of the wall would provide endless amounts of Stone to sell to every single free city in theory, especially Bravos, Pentos, and Lorath. These being the easiest ports.
• Ice, Fresh Water.
• Wild game unique to the North. Deer, Elk, Snow bear, Shadow cats, Mammoths etc. This would be valuable to both the Free Cites and The Watch.
• Animal pelts and skins. 
• Mined goods like Bronze and Iron and other gems and metals like silver or gold found North of the wall. Trade with the Free Folk would benefit them in a great way also for example Thenn could sell there bronze surplus to the watch in exchange for iron and steel or coin.
• Whale, Whale Oil. It seems to me that the only large whaling operation in the world is the Ibbense. They probably have the market cornered, the Nights Watch could be the next big whaling operation.
• Free folk goods, like Amber, Mead, honey, Bone, antler, skins, furs etc.   
• Long shot Trades, Image how much the Slavers in Meereen would pay for a Mammoth for their Fighting pits?    

once peace and some trading was happening at the Wall. It would make the rest of my plans way easier.

• Re-settle the gift and new gift and establish new lords on this Land. Ned and Benjen had this idea, it couldnt have been the first time someone thought about doing this. You would have to coordinate with the Umbers, Karstarks, Starks, and Boltons for sure but it would be in everyones best interest to keep the gift strong. With a strong corp of builders building new castles and towns in the gift would be fairly easy over a few decades.
• Making peace with the Free folk clans would sort of, maybe Civilize them and perhaps some cities would start springing up North of the wall. 

All of the things listed above would make the watch stronger which would increase recruitment and reputation. any thoughts? What else could you do or is all this just crazy. I don't think it would be. Making peace with the Free folk seems to be the hardest task. but Jon was able to do it when tensions were highest. It could be done in quiet times in the history. 

You will get stabbed if you try to make an alliance let alone let the wildlings south of the wall. Not possible, it only kind of works out for jon because of very rare and out of the ordinary circumstances.

Im pretty sure that all orders are doing as much as they can and all branches needs to be up to size to defend the wall. Can't just take half the night's watchmen and go chop wood and hack stone to sell it.

There is less than 1000 night's watchmen and they have to defend and maintain a 300 mile long wall with only 1000 men. They need the rangers to keep an eye on the wildlings, if 30,000 wildling warriors stormed the bridge of skulls without the night's watch knowing about it and being able to reinforce it they would break through. They need the builders to maintain the wall and it's castles, make repairs and clear away trees when they get to close to the wall. And they need the stewards to hunt, farm, gather firewood, cook food, make clothing and weapons and bring needed supplies from the south. Ontop of this they need watchmen to go south and get recruits and people to crew the small fleet at eastwatch by the sea. All of these tasks with 1000 men it simply isn't enough men to do any large scale trading. 

Why do the night's watch suck lol?

[Lord Lannister]

4 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Opening significant cultural and trade ties with the Free Folk is going to lead to a direct decline in support coming from the Northern lords. 

That's already happened though. With the exception of Jeor Mormont, Benjen Stark and Jon Snow there's no members of Northern houses of note at the Wall. They may be sending their criminals still, but those are people they just want to be rid of, so that arrangement benefits them.

[Ralphis Baratheon]

Having a good Lord Commander is important but they also need help from the great lords of the realm especially the Northern ones.  After Robert's Rebellion one of Eddard Stark's biggest failures was never sending a Northern lord to King's Landing to take a Small Council spot to help out the Night's Watch and the rest of the North in general. The North was key in helping Robert win his throne but seems to be the only rebel Kingdom not to get a representative on the Small Council which Robert would have gladly granted them through Ned. Perhaps if there was a Northern lord on the small council he could have put forth a proposal that the Crown along with the Night's Watch could set up small Inn size outposts/short term jails throughout the Kingdoms where prisoners that wanted to take the Black instead of being executed could go. In my opinion one of the reasons the Night's Watch is lacking men in because it's not economical for Southern Lords to send 1 or 2 criminals at a time all the way to the Wall on his own dime. He has to send guards to make sure the criminals go there and pay for all the travel experiences. 

With this system Wondering Crows know where and when to go to these outposts when a raven is sent saying there outposts/jails are full enough. All for the price of a few of Joffrey's name day tournament/feasts. After the rebellion when the royal treasury was full I feel like this could be made possible if the lord representing the North really pressed Jon Arryn about it telling him it was very important to Ned that the Wall is manned to stop future wilding attacks. It would be one boon for the North after they did so much to help Robert win the Throne.

 

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

1 hour ago, Lord Lannister said:

That's already happened though. With the exception of Jeor Mormont, Benjen Stark and Jon Snow there's no members of Northern houses of note at the Wall. They may be sending their criminals still, but those are people they just want to be rid of, so that arrangement benefits them.

Materiel and material support. If they just wanted to get rid of criminals, they'd execute them. No one is taking the black willing for stealing.

[Roswell]

5 hours ago, Winter prince said:

The wall has stood for thousands of years and most likely nothing existed North of the wall after the long night for a long time, you know with the whole apocalypse level disaster thing.  They chose to settle North of the wall so they could be free, and yes it avoids feudal lords, but that choice does not entitle them to raid and pillage villages that live under an "overlord".  It's easy to sympathize with the wildlings because they are humanized through the eyes of Jon and we know there is nothing but death for them North of the wall. 

I agree, but I do not sympathize with the wildlings. 

[House Beaudreau]

On 4/9/2017 at 3:49 PM, Lord Lannister said:

The fundamental flaw is the Night's Watch is penal colony that consists of criminal conscripts led by disgraced nobles. There are few exceptions to this. Most would say Jeor Mormont and Jon Snow were among them. What did that earn them? They were murdered by the men they led. They've been scraping the bottom of the barrel so long, the stories of honor and nobility have faded into the past, and the honorable people that might have joined, instead find something else honorable to do.

is it possible that Jeor join the watch because his sister got pregnant by Tormound Gianstbane "husband to bears" and joined to get revenge on the wildlings

 

[Lord Lannister]

1 hour ago, House Beaudreau said:

is it possible that Jeor join the watch because his sister got pregnant by Tormound Gianstbane "husband to bears" and joined to get revenge on the wildlings

 

Interesting possibility, Tormund did once claim he slept with a bear. I'm uncertain how feasible it is though, given Maege has several daughters, and none of them are noted to be bastards.

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 4/9/2017 at 0:20 PM, House Beaudreau said:

<snip> 

You would do whatever the author wanted you to do, so there is no indication that you would have done anything differently  than say, Mormont of Qorgyle 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 09/04/2017 at 8:20 PM, House Beaudreau said:

First order of business: establish more diplomacy with the free folk. We've heard that there is some trading between the Nights watch and the free folk but not on a large scale. there's also some evidence to suggest some trade goes on between the free folk and the Free cites. Gaining new allies and trying to make peace with the known raiders and some of the larger clans would go a long way at making the Watch strong again. Raiding south of the wall seems to be done by most raiders to take weapons and good the free folk can get access to. Some take coin and riches but most are after Weapons and goods. There doesn't seem to be shortage of women north of the wall, so it seems like stealing daughters is more a tradition and good sport for the braver raiders. Putting a stop to the majority of raids and making peace with the free folk would allow you to accomplish so many things.

One of the main roles of the Nights Watch seems to be to “keep the Wildings down” as it were. Establishing trading links, etc. would potentially turn an ill-equipped, poor enemy into a more dangerous force. The Seven Kingdoms would not necessarily benefit from good relations with the Wildlings, all they do is trouble the far North with minor raids. Best just have a small team of misfits charged with kicking the shit out of them occasionally, and the realm remains pretty secure from them.

The only reason an accord is eventually needed is the threat of the Others, which wasn’t foreseen by anyone.  

[House Beaudreau]

17 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

You would do whatever the author wanted you to do, so there is no indication that you would have done anything differently  than say, Mormont of Qorgyle 

touche 

[House Beaudreau]

14 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

One of the main roles of the Nights Watch seems to be to “keep the Wildings down” as it were. Establishing trading links, etc. would potentially turn an ill-equipped, poor enemy into a more dangerous force. The Seven Kingdoms would not necessarily benefit from good relations with the Wildlings, all they do is trouble the far North with minor raids. Best just have a small team of misfits charged with kicking the shit out of them occasionally, and the realm remains pretty secure from them.

 

The only reason an accord is eventually needed is the threat of the Others, which wasn’t foreseen by anyone

Wouldn't peace always be better tho. Many of the Far northern houses don't seem to send men to the Nights watch i assume because the want to keep fighter around for when raiders do come, if the raids stopped you might see number of recruits go up from northern houses. 

And the wildlings aren't a single entity. We know that Craster trades with them, some free folk have been know to trade with east-watch, and Haldon traded with them. So surely relationships could be made with entire townships like Whitetree or other villages as well as some clans, these relationships would also help you defeat some of the more defiant raiding party and leaders like Rattleshirt, Harma dogshead, the weeper. Think about the Targaryens defeating the Kingswood brotherhood, the got the support of the smallfolk of the kings wood, and a lot of the free folk population in village and town dwellers who don't engage in a lot of fighting or raiding and would gain a lot from relationships with the Nights Watch.