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Pre Conquest Night's Watch - purely Northen affair?


TMIFairy

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3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

What you overlook is the fact that the Watch was given the Gift by a Brandon Stark. Meaning that the King of Winter's domain had to stretch up to the Wall before he could donate the coldest, northernmost part of it to the Watch. So if he ruled all the way up to the Wall he ruled most of the North at that time. Clearly this was not Bran the Builder, as the Starks didn't rule that far North yet in his time, meaning the Watch didn't have the Gift until the Starks had conquered all that territory.

No, that doesn't mean that at all. This Brandon the Builder fellow was obviously a man of vast influence even in lands he didn't rule. After all, he supposedly also helped Durran Godsgrief to build the castle of Storm's End. Does this mean he had any holdings in the Stormlands? No, it doesn't.

Chances are that Brandon the Builder was a man connected to the Last Hero and the other people who defeated the Others - the men who actually founded the Night's Watch (you do know that the Watch was founded by the very men who defeated the Others, right, at least according to TWoIaF?) - and those men and their associates would have been essentially the saviors of mankind. While they clearly didn't technically rule the entire continent, they would have had an enormous moral authority, leading to them being able to establish this Night's Watch.

If the Starks had actually ruled all the lands from Winterfell up to the Gift the entire history of the North we know would be completely wrong. All the conquests the Starks won during 'legendary and known history' takes place after and not before the Long Night. Legend tells us that Brandon the Builder is the founder of House Stark, not one of the later kings.

The idea that a man like Brandon the Builder - a man of legend and song who may have been involved in the defeat of the Others - actually would have had to have legal jurisdiction over the Gift to give it away is pretty much ridiculous. It could even have been that the people living in the Gift as well as the land on which the Wall built were all wiped out by the Others - or fled from their lands when the Others came. Then 'giving' this land to the Watch would have been pretty much a non-issue anyway.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

This ties in with the reality of the aftermath of the Long Night, which again you seem to overlook. The Watch didn't start out with a maximum number (say 100,000 as in your scenario), and then gradualy decline from that point onward. The Long Night had wiped out most of the population of Westeros.

You like to say that, but there are actually no numbers to prove that. It could very well be so, but it isn't a given. But I never said that those 100,000 men (or 50,000, or whatever you want to consider) were there immediately when the Watch was founded.

I just said I could see more than half of the male population of the Hundred Kingdoms taking the black at that point - because those men would have understood that building and maintaining that Wall was the most important task imaginable. I don't think there would have been millions of people in Westeros at that point. Not just because of the Long Night but also because half of the entire continent or more would have still been forest at that time.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

We don't even know if 100,000 able bodied men remained alive at that time in all of Westeros. I'm not saying there weren't that many, but I'm saying that the population would have been a fraction of what it is today, and even today supporting a standing army of 100,000 men would be all but impossible for the Iron Throne.

The idea would be that the strength of the Watch slowly increased, eventually reaching the peak of its power centuries after the Long Night. Then it could have been stable for a time, going somewhat down, recovering again, until the slow and inevitable decline began.

You must keep in mind that the shift from 'most noble calling' to 'mostly criminals' would have been a slow process in and of itself. The lords and kings understood that the Watch was important, and that's why they ended up giving criminals the choice to take the black instead of being punished.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So the original Watch would have been tiny. Just like the original armies of the petty kings were tiny. The castles along the Wall, and the Wall itself would have grown gradually over time, as the population of Westeros recovered. But at the same time, the more time passed, the more distant the memory of the Others would have become. At some point the maximum Watch size would have been achieved, once the 18 original castles had been built. This was centuries or even millenia after the Long Night, once the Gift had also been granted to the Watch.

Still, they built the huge Wall and maintained it from the start. Even if the original Wall was just 50-100 feet high, it would have been an enormous task to pull that off, involving thousands of workers who, at that time, most likely also were members of the Night's Watch. And then there would have always been the men to actually man it, to defend the realms of men against the threat that would have been very real in the minds of those people.

People wouldn't have focused on the recovery of their stupid petty kingdoms. They would have focused first and foremost on their collective security. That is why they founded the Night's Watch and agreed to support and volunteer for it.

It may have even that those petty wars and conquests the First Men and later Andal history is covering in all those legends, songs, and histories was a thing of the past for as much as a couple of centuries after the Long Night because people understood that infighting among them would only strengthen the Others and diminish the chances that they could beat them back should they ever show up again.

Then it would have been essentially corrupt and selfish people who their own ambitions and power before the common good which began (again) with those wars of aggression that define Westerosi history.

In light of that it is interesting that the vow of the Night's Watch does actually not contain the whole neutrality clause. That is just a tradition that may have later developed when it became clear that the realms of men were divided again, constantly warring against each other. At that point it must have been of paramount importance for the continued existence and function of the Watch that the people taking the black forgot what had happened before and that the Watch itself didn't care what happened back home.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for the size of the castles. Winterfell is massive. Is it manned to capacity all the time? Nope. It has a parmanent garrison of 200. Same with every other castle in Westeros. The size of the castle does not reflect its permanent garrison size.

The castles at the Wall were built to serve a very specific military function. They wouldn't have been built and maintained just to have castles that have no purpose. The size and number of the castles at the Wall would have been determined by the need of the men defending the Wall. When those castles were built they were all needed, and they were all manned. Else the people at the time wouldn't have built as many or as large castles as they did.

The castles at the Wall are not refuge castles where the peasants around can find shelter in times of war, nor were they built as castles feed and shelter commoners in winter. They were built to defend the Wall. And they are manned, owned, and run exclusively by military personnel, the members of the Night's Watch. Civilians, families, women, etc. have no place there.

In that sense, you can't compare those castles to Winterfell - which in itself is an odd case. I'm pretty sure Highgarden or Casterly Rock are not as empty as Winterfell most of the time. The Lannisters and Tyrells have the resources and coin to actually keep a large and lavish retinue and court.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In the end, the 1% rule indeed governs the logistical capabilty of a society to maintain an army. A standing army is no different. Westeros as a whole can today maintain maybe 400,000 men in the field, for a limited time - certainly not permanently. And Westeros today is far more advanced, with a far higher population, than Westeros during the Age of Heroes. To maintain a standing army of 100,000 or even 30,000, at the far end of the World, on top of their normal armies in their various kingdoms is simply not a convincing argument.

100,000 men at the Wall, garrisoned in 19 castles (which would mean roughly 5,000 men per castle, on average) wouldn't be that big of deal. Many of those men would belong the orders of the builders and stewards, meaning they themselves would work to maintain everything.

The problem of maintaining a (moving) army is completely different. They live of the land, and thus cripple the agricultural economy of whatever region they camp in or march through. And the Watch wouldn't only be fed by their peasants in the Gift. They would also hunt beyond the Wall, and they would be giving food by many generous lords and kings from the Hundred/Seven Kingdoms. They receive such gifts to this day. 

The idea that there couldn't live 100,000 men along a wall 100 leagues long is about as ridiculous as claiming the Crownlanders couldn't feed the 500,000 people living in KL.

That definitely could work. Perhaps they could even feed 150,000 or 200,000. I don't know. Nobody ever said they would have gotten the best food up there.

The crucial point is that the people joining the Watch actually volunteered to go up there. People joining the Watch weren't born and raised living in the scarcely populated North with its meager resources. They are essentially all elite immigrants who collective control vast assets of a an apparently reasonably fertile region up there.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

That's why I think 10,000 was likely the standing size of the Watch - with temporary fluctuations - for a long time. One wonders how any King Beyond the Wall was able to create any problems for the North in any case, if there were 10,000 men on the Wall for 7700 years. Mance Rayder himself was barely able to raise 10,000 poorly armoured and poorly disciplined warriors from the entire Wildling population. They were broken by a single charge of 1000 southron knights.

Perhaps the older wildling kings organized their men much better? You are aware of the fact that Mance was essentially leading an army of refugees, not an army of conquerors, right?

Earlier wildling kings would also have had no issues with the Others, etc. They wanted to raid and conquer, and it is obvious that they would have had the power to get through the Wall one way or another. But you do know that neither of them actually defeated the Watch, right? Gendel and Gorne supposedly went through those caves, the Horned Lord used magic to get his army through it, and Raymun climbed over it while the Watch was not looking because they were nearly on the same level as they are in AGoT.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

WIth 10,000 men on the Wall no wildling King could have presented much of a challenge to Westeros during the Age of Heroes. And yet they did. Telling me that the Watch was not always as strong as it was during Aegon's Conquest, let alone having a strength of 20,000 or 30,000.

Again, larger numbers and better organization.

And perhaps a different and broader interpretation of the neutrality thing. If the Watch once exclusively protected the realms of men against the Others, then an attack by the wildlings - if they didn't interfere with the Watch - would have concerned them as much as some savage war between the Starks and Boltons or some Dornish petty kings.

Joramun and Brandon the Breaker worked together to defeat the Night's King. That indicates that the wildlings did accept the role and purpose of the Night's Watch at that time. Else Joramun could have allowed the Night's King to ruin the Watch instead of working with the Starks to restore it to its proper function.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

My assessment is a target standing strength of 10,000, which varied over time by maybe 50% or so. In some centuries it may have been down to 5,000 and in others maybe up to 15,000. But even that starts looking extreme.

Not in the slightest. Again, compare it to a city, which is full of useless mouths that don't produce food.

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27 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

No, that doesn't mean that at all. This Brandon the Builder fellow was obviously a man of vast influence even in lands he didn't rule. After all, he supposedly also helped Durran Godsgrief to build the castle of Storm's End. Does this mean he had any holdings in the Stormlands? No, it doesn't.

Chances are that Brandon the Builder was a man connected to the Last Hero and the other people who defeated the Others - the men who actually founded the Night's Watch (you do know that the Watch was founded by the very men who defeated the Others, right, at least according to TWoIaF?) - and those men and their associates would have been essentially the saviors of mankind. While they clearly didn't technically rule the entire continent, they would have had an enormous moral authority, leading to them being able to establish this Night's Watch.

If the Starks had actually ruled all the lands from Winterfell up to the Gift the entire history of the North we know would be completely wrong. All the conquests the Starks won during 'legendary and known history' takes place after and not before the Long Night. Legend tells us that Brandon the Builder is the founder of House Stark, not one of the later kings.

The idea that a man like Brandon the Builder - a man of legend and song who may have been involved in the defeat of the Others - actually would have had to have legal jurisdiction over the Gift to give it away is pretty much ridiculous. It could even have been that the people living in the Gift as well as the land on which the Wall built were all wiped out by the Others - or fled from their lands when the Others came. Then 'giving' this land to the Watch would have been pretty much a non-issue anyway.

You like to say that, but there are actually no numbers to prove that. It could very well be so, but it isn't a given. But I never said that those 100,000 men (or 50,000, or whatever you want to consider) were there immediately when the Watch was founded.

I just said I could see more than half of the male population of the Hundred Kingdoms taking the black at that point - because those men would have understood that building and maintaining that Wall was the most important task imaginable. I don't think there would have been millions of people in Westeros at that point. Not just because of the Long Night but also because half of the entire continent or more would have still been forest at that time.

The idea would be that the strength of the Watch slowly increased, eventually reaching the peak of its power centuries after the Long Night. Then it could have been stable for a time, going somewhat down, recovering again, until the slow and inevitable decline began.

You must keep in mind that the shift from 'most noble calling' to 'mostly criminals' would have been a slow process in and of itself. The lords and kings understood that the Watch was important, and that's why they ended up giving criminals the choice to take the black instead of being punished.

Still, they built the huge Wall and maintained it from the start. Even if the original Wall was just 50-100 feet high, it would have been an enormous task to pull that off, involving thousands of workers who, at that time, most likely also were members of the Night's Watch. And then there would have always been the men to actually man it, to defend the realms of men against the threat that would have been very real in the minds of those people.

People wouldn't have focused on the recovery of their stupid petty kingdoms. They would have focused first and foremost on their collective security. That is why they founded the Night's Watch and agreed to support and volunteer for it.

It may have even that those petty wars and conquests the First Men and later Andal history is covering in all those legends, songs, and histories was a thing of the past for as much as a couple of centuries after the Long Night because people understood that infighting among them would only strengthen the Others and diminish the chances that they could beat them back should they ever show up again.

Then it would have been essentially corrupt and selfish people who their own ambitions and power before the common good which began (again) with those wars of aggression that define Westerosi history.

In light of that it is interesting that the vow of the Night's Watch does actually not contain the whole neutrality clause. That is just a tradition that may have later developed when it became clear that the realms of men were divided again, constantly warring against each other. At that point it must have been of paramount importance for the continued existence and function of the Watch that the people taking the black forgot what had happened before and that the Watch itself didn't care what happened back home.

The castles at the Wall were built to serve a very specific military function. They wouldn't have been built and maintained just to have castles that have no purpose. The size and number of the castles at the Wall would have been determined by the need of the men defending the Wall. When those castles were built they were all needed, and they were all manned. Else the people at the time wouldn't have built as many or as large castles as they did.

The castles at the Wall are not refuge castles where the peasants around can find shelter in times of war, nor were they built as castles feed and shelter commoners in winter. They were built to defend the Wall. And they are manned, owned, and run exclusively by military personnel, the members of the Night's Watch. Civilians, families, women, etc. have no place there.

In that sense, you can't compare those castles to Winterfell - which in itself is an odd case. I'm pretty sure Highgarden or Casterly Rock are not as empty as Winterfell most of the time. The Lannisters and Tyrells have the resources and coin to actually keep a large and lavish retinue and court.

100,000 men at the Wall, garrisoned in 19 castles (which would mean roughly 5,000 men per castle, on average) wouldn't be that big of deal. Many of those men would belong the orders of the builders and stewards, meaning they themselves would work to maintain everything.

The problem of maintaining a (moving) army is completely different. They live of the land, and thus cripple the agricultural economy of whatever region they camp in or march through. And the Watch wouldn't only be fed by their peasants in the Gift. They would also hunt beyond the Wall, and they would be giving food by many generous lords and kings from the Hundred/Seven Kingdoms. They receive such gifts to this day. 

The idea that there couldn't live 100,000 men along a wall 100 leagues long is about as ridiculous as claiming the Crownlanders couldn't feed the 500,000 people living in KL.

That definitely could work. Perhaps they could even feed 150,000 or 200,000. I don't know. Nobody ever said they would have gotten the best food up there.

The crucial point is that the people joining the Watch actually volunteered to go up there. People joining the Watch weren't born and raised living in the scarcely populated North with its meager resources. They are essentially all elite immigrants who collective control vast assets of a an apparently reasonably fertile region up there.

Perhaps the older wildling kings organized their men much better? You are aware of the fact that Mance was essentially leading an army of refugees, not an army of conquerors, right?

Earlier wildling kings would also have had no issues with the Others, etc. They wanted to raid and conquer, and it is obvious that they would have had the power to get through the Wall one way or another. But you do know that neither of them actually defeated the Watch, right? Gendel and Gorne supposedly went through those caves, the Horned Lord used magic to get his army through it, and Raymun climbed over it while the Watch was not looking because they were nearly on the same level as they are in AGoT.

Again, larger numbers and better organization.

And perhaps a different and broader interpretation of the neutrality thing. If the Watch once exclusively protected the realms of men against the Others, then an attack by the wildlings - if they didn't interfere with the Watch - would have concerned them as much as some savage war between the Starks and Boltons or some Dornish petty kings.

Joramun and Brandon the Breaker worked together to defeat the Night's King. That indicates that the wildlings did accept the role and purpose of the Night's Watch at that time. Else Joramun could have allowed the Night's King to ruin the Watch instead of working with the Starks to restore it to its proper function.

Not in the slightest. Again, compare it to a city, which is full of useless mouths that don't produce food.

Holy shit but you are stubborn. Where to begin? Address the sweeping statements of opinion dressed as fact? But which one?

Let's pause at the ridiculous suggestion that half the male population of Westeros could have manned the Watch. No they could not. Not for any extended period. Or even a short period for that matter. It is not economically or logistcally possible.

How about the superficial and flawed comparison of the Watch and a city like Kings Landing. A city has a massive trade economy supporting and financing it. It is the focal point of an economy of an entire kingdom. Maintaining an artificial city of 100,000 people (or 250,000 as your fancies now really start taking flight) is not possible.

Frankly, if the Gift could support a standing army of 100,000 men, then so could the Umber lands, or the Karstark lands. Or let's assume support from the entire North. Then the equivalent could be the Starks. Can they support a standing army of 100,000? No. They can support 30k men, for a limited period of time.

Heck, how about the Iron Throne itself? Nope. It would be crippled in debt from trying to maintain half that number in a standing army for even a few years.

As for Brandon donating the Gift. It is even suggested in the text that it was a different Brandon who gave it to the Watch. Which makes sense. Bran the Builder had no authority over Sea Dragon point, the Wolfswood, the Umber or Dustin lands, the Neck, the Mountain Clan lands or of course the Bolton lands. Logic dictates that he had no authority over the Gift either.

Initially there would not even have been a Wall. Just castles. That's why there were so many of them. To try and cover the entire Gap at the narrowest part of the North. The Wall grew later. Over thousands of years.

The Watch were the Watchers on the Walls (plural) after all. Not the Watchers on the Wall.

 

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22 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yeah sorry. Didnt mean to disagree with your post as such. Just to counter the generally held view of a slow decline. It was in fact a very sudden decline.

I still think the NW was on a slow decline before the Conquest. Even the NW own records show this, according to the World book (if I remember right).  Then we see a real sharp decline in the 300 years after the Conquest.

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17 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Holy shit but you are stubborn. Where to begin? Address the sweeping statements of opinion dressed as fact? But which one?

Arguing with Lord Varys is futile. He wears you down with his lengthy posts, the drivel consisting mostly of half-truths and fabrication.,

Personally I put him on "ignore" my second week here and I've been enjoying the experience ever since.

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8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Let's pause at the ridiculous suggestion that half the male population of Westeros could have manned the Watch. No they could not. Not for any extended period. Or even a short period for that matter. It is not economically or logistcally possible.

That would depend on the number of males who survived the Long Night, no?

I mean, just think about it. Imagine you survived the Long Night. Your entire family is dead, you barely survived, chances are very bad that you can find a wife under those circumstances (perhaps significantly more men than women survived the Long Night?), and then you hear that a sacred order has been founded to serve and protect all of mankind against the Others - and everybody is welcome in that order. What do you do?

The decision shouldn't be that hard. If a hundred or more petty kingdoms which usually constantly against each other could agree on founding and protecting the NW - and that in and of itself is already insane - then the people doing that must also have been willing to sacrifice a lot to make that happen. Meaning they may have put their own petty desires - the rebuilding of castles, villages, towns, farms, etc. - behind the need to build that Wall and establish and maintain the Night's Watch.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

How about the superficial and flawed comparison of the Watch and a city like Kings Landing. A city has a massive trade economy supporting and financing it. It is the focal point of an economy of an entire kingdom. Maintaining an artificial city of 100,000 people (or 250,000 as your fancies now really start taking flight) is not possible.

A city is just a huge town. And the amount of trade they are doing has little to do with the way they feed themselves unless they are dependent on food imports. Which as far as we know isn't the case for the Westerosi cities, no?

Even more so, the Night's Watch is supported by food imports from all across the Seven Kingdoms. That means there could have lived more people at the Wall than the Gift(s) - and the lands beyond the Wall the Watch also effectively controlled - could actually support.

The Watch isn't an institution that was necessarily conceived as surviving all by itself. If there was a particularly bad winter, or some other catastrophe up in the Gifts then the petty kings and lords would have been morally obliged to help out the Watch, just as they sent a lot of things to the Wall under normal circumstances.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Frankly, if the Gift could support a standing army of 100,000 men, then so could the Umber lands, or the Karstark lands. Or let's assume support from the entire North. Then the equivalent could be the Starks. Can they support a standing army of 100,000? No. They can support 30k men, for a limited period of time.

Don't you understand the difference between a standing military force like the Watch and the way the lords and kings raise an army under the primitive conditions they live in?

The cities of Westeros are, for the most part, fed by the peasants around them. If they didn't have the resources to do that the citizens of those cities - and the cities itself - would simply not exist (and the same is true for the Free Cities, etc.).

A similar system could also feed a standing military order at the Wall, especially if you don't get only food from the lands you control directly but also all the realms of men.

The Watch recruits itself from able-bodied men from all the Seven Kingdoms. Men who have the leisure and opportunity to leave their homes, hearths, castles, workshops, towns, etc. They are not average people. They don't have to care for their wives and children - there aren't even any women and children in their castles. The food that arrives at the castles of the Watch is only eaten by men wearing the black.

A lord or king usually raises an army from the people living on his lands - people who actually have different jobs and duties than fighting for their lord (aside from the men who are trained to fight - knights, sworn swords, men-at-arms, freeriders, etc.).

A lord or king could maintain as large a force as the Watch could in the scenario I'm talking about if he controlled all the Seven Kingdoms - which are the territory from which the Watch recruits itself - and gave the able-bodied men of that territory the opportunity to join the ranks of the lord's or king's standing military force. It is not my fault that such opportunities and such military forces don't exist. But they do exist, in a sense, in the Watch (and did, in a lesser degree, in the Faith Militant orders).

If the Targaryens, Starks, etc. had a standing military they could have armies as large and powerful as the Roman legions in their prime. That would have been technically and economically feasible. The fact that this wasn't done is due to the primitive medieval setting we are talking about.

But the Watch is different from that. The Watch is a military order you join. Its only duty is protecting and manning that Wall, and all of the Seven Kingdoms pamper them so they have the spare time and leisure to their job.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Heck, how about the Iron Throne itself? Nope. It would be crippled in debt from trying to maintain half that number in a standing army for even a few years.

In a Roman-like setting most definitely not. If the Targaryens had broken the lords and changed the framework from the society from feudal aristocracy to a military dictatorship with the generals and the emperor running the country, Westeros could have had standing armies of enormous size.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for Brandon donating the Gift. It is even suggested in the text that it was a different Brandon who gave it to the Watch. Which makes sense. Bran the Builder had no authority over Sea Dragon point, the Wolfswood, the Umber or Dustin lands, the Neck, the Mountain Clan lands or of course the Bolton lands. Logic dictates that he had no authority over the Gift either.

There are still versions in the story who claim that Brandon the Builder gave the Gift to the Night's Watch. We really don't know what the man did if he lived at all. But it is still confirmed that the Night's Watch was founded immediately after the Long Night and consisted of the (surviving) men who won the War for the Dawn. That means the NW got their Gift during a time the Starks most definitely did not rule the lands along the Wall. Claiming that they did rule those at that time would mean to ignore the entire history of the Starks conquest of the North - which took place only after the Long Night was over.

It is actually irrelevant which Brandon Stark gave the Gift to the Watch - it is not likely that any such Brandon Stark actually ruled/owned the lands he was giving away in such a fashion. Unless, of course, we assume the petty kings of Winterfell ruled vast lands thousands of miles away from Winterfell in the decades after the Long Night.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Initially there would not even have been a Wall. Just castles. That's why there were so many of them. To try and cover the entire Gap at the narrowest part of the North. The Wall grew later. Over thousands of years.

Considering that there seems to be some magic in that ice wall, a magic that is crucial in keeping the Others out of the realms of men, one assumes that there was some sort of wall there from the beginning. I'm with you that it could have been little more than a fence in the beginning, but chances are that it went from the eastern coast to the Gorge even then.

And the Night's Watch would have always protected it. That was their job.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The Watch were the Watchers on the Walls (plural) after all. Not the Watchers on the Wall.

That is an oddity, and it could very well refer to the walls of the NW castles, originally. Or the fact that the Watch was already founded during the War for the Dawn - when there wasn't a Wall yet -, with the Last Hero commanding them, as TWoIaF implies:

Quote

How the Long Night came to an end is a matter of legend, as all such matters of the distant past have become. In the North, they tell of a last hero who sought out the intercession of the children of the forest, his companions abandoning him or dying one by one as they faced ravenous giants, cold servants, and the Others themselves. Alone he finally reached the children, despite the efforts of the white walkers, and all the tales agree this was a turning point. Thanks to the children, the first men of the Night’s Watch banded together and were able to fight—and win—the Battle for the Dawn: the last battle that broke the endless winter and sent the Others fleeing to the icy north. Now, six thousand years later (or eight thousand as True History puts forward), the Wall made to defend the realms of men is still manned by the sworn brothers of the Night’s Watch, and neither the Others nor the children have been seen in many centuries.

That is actual a crucial bit of information that is as of yet missing in the novels. We only have the beginning of the legend of the Last Hero, and hear the man was searching out the Children of the Forest. But we don't really know what happened after he found them, or how victory was achieved and the Others defeated after he found them.

Considering there was a War for the Dawn - a war fought by (presumably) more than one person (the Last Hero himself) on the side of mankind there must have been armies and such, and it actually seems that the men fighting in those armies were the beginning of the Night's Watch.

Which actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Only the heroes who actually saved mankind could have forced all those squabbling petty kings and lords to help them raise that Wall and maintain it for, as it seems, 6,000 rather than 8,000 years. On their own those men would have never agreed to something as ridiculous as that, and the people living in the southern reaches (i.e. a couple of petty kingdoms away from the place where the Wall was built) wouldn't have seen any reason whatsoever to feel morally responsible to help those people in protecting their borders.

In that sense, the vow of the Night's Watch - or at least parts of it - could have been a vow or pledge first sworn during the Long Night, going back to the first men banding together to put an end to the Others. The grim speech definitely indicates that the first men swearing it knew what they were talking about. They knew what kind of night they are talking about, and why things like fires burning against the cold, lights bringing the dawn, horns waking the sleepers were important.

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6 hours ago, TMIFairy said:

Arguing with Lord Varys is futile. He wears you own with his lengthy posts, the drivel consisting mostly of half-truths and fabrication.,

Personally I put him on "ignore" my second week here and I've been enjoying the experience ever since.

Hahaha awww he's quite fun, just gotta hit him with a lot of quotes from the books to illustrate your point rather than playing the same game of writing long lengthy thoughts. I find these debates fun long as people aren't rude to each other overtly :) 

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8 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Hahaha awww he's quite fun, just gotta hit him with a lot of quotes from the books to illustrate your point rather than playing the same game of writing long lengthy thoughts. I find these debates fun long as people aren't rude to each other overtly :) 

Yeah, sorry. The rudeness was not intended. It was more an expression of my exasperation with his line and style of argument than an intent to disparage. Lord Varys and I come a long way, I enjoy our discussions a lot, even if we disagree on much, and that familiarity probably leads me to be a bit more colourful in my choice of wording than would otherwise be the case.

Anyway, I still disagree on the point being made. I'm on my phone now, so will go into more detail later. Let's just say the Roman Empire with all its central organization, infrastructure and logistical ability could maintain a standing army of something like 400k. That was 1% of its population. It was also partly fuelled by its constant expansion and acquisition of new resources.

Westeros would not come close to that percentage, even today. In the days of the hundred kingdoms far less so.

As for Brandon's Gift. It was clearly Gifted to the Watch many centuries after its founding and not at the very start. The Starks had to rule that land first to Gift it, and that would not be the case for centuries, perhaps millenia after the Long Night. The initial Watch likely consisted of some simple stone towers or even ringforts, built along the magical line that would become the future Wall - perhaps each next to a weirwood that was a focal point for the Great Spell or what have you. And manned by a few dozen men per Tower perhaps.

And over the millenia, as the population recovered and grew, so did the castles and the Watch numbers, until one day they needed the Gift to help support their order.

That's the type of scenario I envisage. As for the maximum size of the Watch. Considering the zenith we are told about numbered 10,000 swords, that would imply 30,000 men altogether. But 20,000 of these would be workers (Builders and Stewards), focused on growing food and maintaning the Watch. Frankly, even this number is extraordinary. But it is still only a third of the fighting force that Torhenn took to the Riverlands, for example.

The key difference being one is a standing force, while the other was a temporary host held together for maybe a few months only, at great cost.

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5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Anyway, I still disagree on the point being made. I'm on my phone now, so will go into more detail later. Let's just say the Roman Empire with all its central organization, infrastructure and logistical ability could maintain a standing army of something like 400k. That was 1% of its population. It was also partly fuelled by its constant expansion and acquisition of new resources.

I don't know any details about the population of the Roman Empire during the ages, but the point simply is that the lands the Romans conquered as well as Westeros as a continent would have had the necessary resources to feed and maintain a large standing garrison. During the civil wars the Roman legions climbed to insane numbers, and later on, during the long era of relative peace beginning with Augustus the main point of the legions was simply to protect the borders - along the entire empire.

In Rome the central authority ensured that the army got fed and paid. That was the most important task. In the Hundred/Seven Kingdoms it is pretty clear that Watch and Wall were seen as equally important. Else, nobody would have fed and supported those morons, nor would anyone have joined them.

Just as no Roman would have joined the legions if people hadn't believed doing that was important and/or a good career path for them.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Westeros would not come close to that percentage, even today. In the days of the hundred kingdoms far less so.

I never said it would have been as much as 400,000, no?

And again - note that 100,000 men would mean roughly 5,000 men per castle at the Wall. If we went by 50,000 it would 2,500 per castle, and 10,000 - your ridiculous peak idea - would mean only 500 men per castle.

Surely the people wouldn't have built so many castles if they would have to stretch men so thinly. There are three orders within the Watch - rangers, builders, and stewards. If we have 500 men per castle, roughly a third of those - depending on the abilities and talents of the recruits - would be in each order. That would give us very few rangers, builders, and stewards per castle.

In that sense, I'd say the castles at the Watch were designed for - and maintained by - a total number of black brothers ranging between 50,000 and 100,000 men. Perhaps there were even more than that in ideal times.

But we don't hear anything of the Watch slowly building more castles overtime, we only hear about them closing down castles. That means that the Watch was very strong in ancient days and then slowly but inevitably declined.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for Brandon's Gift. It was clearly Gifted to the Watch many centuries after its founding and not at the very start.

That is not clear at all. One version of the story is that Brandon the Builder gave the Gift to them - and I'm actually more inclined to believe that part of the story than the claim he helped in the building of Storm's End. He is also credited with building the Wall itself, you know, and if that was the case (i.e. if he help instigate the building and perhaps see the first 'original fence' completed in his lifetime) then he most likely was also the guy who ensured the Watch got their Gift.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The Starks had to rule that land first to Gift it, and that would not be the case for centuries, perhaps millenia after the Long Night.

No, they don't have to rule it to give it away. We are not talking about states and established lordly houses and laws here. We are talking about the ancient First Men who would have been as savage as the wildlings are still today (or perhaps even more so). If so guy with moral authority (or just a big club) told everyone that the people protecting them all get a huge tract of land than this is going to happen.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The initial Watch likely consisted of some simple stone towers or even ringforts, built along the magical line that would become the future Wall - perhaps each next to a weirwood that was a focal point for the Great Spell or what have you. And manned by a few dozen men per Tower perhaps.

Perhaps this was the case in the very beginning. But I never said I insist on 100,000 men being there in the very beginning. Just that the Watch would have contained a large percentage of the men surviving the Long Night. Again, the Night's Watch was the institution who defeated the Others in the War for the Dawn, as per TWoIaF.

They would have been the heroes of mankind after that. Everybody would have sucked up to them. They would perhaps effectively have been the effective rulers of Westeros - only to give up that power to do what is right.

You are the guy constantly arguing that everyone and their grandmother is going to make Jon Snow king should he defeat the Others. Now, there are men who actually did defeat the Others, right? Last Hero (assuming he survived) and the other original members of the Night's Watch. So why would these men be seen different than you think Jon Snow is going to be seen should he defeat the Others (and survive the fighting)?

The building of the Wall would have taken a long time. But one assumes people saw it as a very important mission to build it as quickly and as high as possible in the early days rather than later on. In that sense I assume that building and maintaining the Wall was a most important task in the centuries immediately after the Long Night.

This doesn't mean that the peak of the Watch was reached at that point, but I really assume everyone was making huge efforts to sends as much support as they could to the Wall in those days, including men. 

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And over the millenia, as the population recovered and grew, so did the castles and the Watch numbers, until one day they needed the Gift to help support their order.

We know the Gift goes back to the beginning of the Wall. That is what the idea of Brandon the Builder being the one giving the Gift indicates.

And quite frankly, we don't know when exactly the Starks would have controlled the lands along the Wall that are Brandon's Gift if they had to conquer them first. It would have been after they subdued the Umbers, to be sure. That would have been rather late in their expansionist phase, so people should know who the Brandon was who gave the land to the Watch. But they don't, indicating that this was really a long, long time ago.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

That's the type of scenario I envisage. As for the maximum size of the Watch. Considering the zenith we are told about numbered 10,000 swords, that would imply 30,000 men altogether. But 20,000 of these would be workers (Builders and Stewards), focused on growing food and maintaning the Watch. Frankly, even this number is extraordinary. But it is still only a third of the fighting force that Torhenn took to the Riverlands, for example.

We don't know how many men exactly Lord Commander Hoare had at the Wall. The talk about 10,000 swords seems to imply this was the strength of the Watch at the time. The Watch is a military order, every brother is trained to (and expected to) fight. The rangers are the elite, but the builders and stewards are fighters, too.

As usual, you seem to be obsessed with making the North look good in comparison to everyone else. But the Watch is a military order. Everyone up there is a warrior. And the people up there are all male. 

A lord or king has to raise troops from his population in a ridiculously inefficient medieval way. The Watch doesn't have to raise troops. They live in permanent army camps until they die. They are always in armor, always ready to fight (or at least they were, for most of their existence).

Again, if cities of a populations of hundreds of thousands can maintain themselves without any food imports then nineteen 'towns' at the Wall having an average garrison of 2,500-5,000 men stretching along a Wall 300 miles long, and controlling a tract of reasonably fertile and densely populated land which covers a square of 125*300 miles - while also be supported by all the Seven Kingdoms with additional food and other supplies (weapons, armor, clothes, material, etc.) - then it is not unreasonably at all that there could have been 100,000 fighting men up there for quite some time. And certainly as many as 50,000 or 70,000.

You should also keep in mind that there were volunteers from all across the Seven Kingdoms - and still are, as many of the names in the Watch testify. If going to the Wall was once a high honor, how many men do you think would arrive up there if every man from a larger village was considering to join them?

In the good times those wandering crows would have come back with thousands of recruits in their tow, not counting the men who simply decided to join the Watch without ever meeting a black brother in real life.

Do you think they had a policy of 'No, we are too many up here now. Go back home.'?

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7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't know any details about the population of the Roman Empire during the ages, but the point simply is that the lands the Romans conquered as well as Westeros as a continent would have had the necessary resources to feed and maintain a large standing garrison. During the civil wars the Roman legions climbed to insane numbers, and later on, during the long era of relative peace beginning with Augustus the main point of the legions was simply to protect the borders - along the entire empire.

In Rome the central authority ensured that the army got fed and paid. That was the most important task. In the Hundred/Seven Kingdoms it is pretty clear that Watch and Wall were seen as equally important. Else, nobody would have fed and supported those morons, nor would anyone have joined them.

Just as no Roman would have joined the legions if people hadn't believed doing that was important and/or a good career path for them.

I never said it would have been as much as 400,000, no?

And again - note that 100,000 men would mean roughly 5,000 men per castle at the Wall. If we went by 50,000 it would 2,500 per castle, and 10,000 - your ridiculous peak idea - would mean only 500 men per castle.

Surely the people wouldn't have built so many castles if they would have to stretch men so thinly. There are three orders within the Watch - rangers, builders, and stewards. If we have 500 men per castle, roughly a third of those - depending on the abilities and talents of the recruits - would be in each order. That would give us very few rangers, builders, and stewards per castle.

In that sense, I'd say the castles at the Watch were designed for - and maintained by - a total number of black brothers ranging between 50,000 and 100,000 men. Perhaps there were even more than that in ideal times.

But we don't hear anything of the Watch slowly building more castles overtime, we only hear about them closing down castles. That means that the Watch was very strong in ancient days and then slowly but inevitably declined.

That is not clear at all. One version of the story is that Brandon the Builder gave the Gift to them - and I'm actually more inclined to believe that part of the story than the claim he helped in the building of Storm's End. He is also credited with building the Wall itself, you know, and if that was the case (i.e. if he help instigate the building and perhaps see the first 'original fence' completed in his lifetime) then he most likely was also the guy who ensured the Watch got their Gift.

No, they don't have to rule it to give it away. We are not talking about states and established lordly houses and laws here. We are talking about the ancient First Men who would have been as savage as the wildlings are still today (or perhaps even more so). If so guy with moral authority (or just a big club) told everyone that the people protecting them all get a huge tract of land than this is going to happen.

Perhaps this was the case in the very beginning. But I never said I insist on 100,000 men being there in the very beginning. Just that the Watch would have contained a large percentage of the men surviving the Long Night. Again, the Night's Watch was the institution who defeated the Others in the War for the Dawn, as per TWoIaF.

They would have been the heroes of mankind after that. Everybody would have sucked up to them. They would perhaps effectively have been the effective rulers of Westeros - only to give up that power to do what is right.

You are the guy constantly arguing that everyone and their grandmother is going to make Jon Snow king should he defeat the Others. Now, there are men who actually did defeat the Others, right? Last Hero (assuming he survived) and the other original members of the Night's Watch. So why would these men be seen different than you think Jon Snow is going to be seen should he defeat the Others (and survive the fighting)?

The building of the Wall would have taken a long time. But one assumes people saw it as a very important mission to build it as quickly and as high as possible in the early days rather than later on. In that sense I assume that building and maintaining the Wall was a most important task in the centuries immediately after the Long Night.

This doesn't mean that the peak of the Watch was reached at that point, but I really assume everyone was making huge efforts to sends as much support as they could to the Wall in those days, including men. 

We know the Gift goes back to the beginning of the Wall. That is what the idea of Brandon the Builder being the one giving the Gift indicates.

And quite frankly, we don't know when exactly the Starks would have controlled the lands along the Wall that are Brandon's Gift if they had to conquer them first. It would have been after they subdued the Umbers, to be sure. That would have been rather late in their expansionist phase, so people should know who the Brandon was who gave the land to the Watch. But they don't, indicating that this was really a long, long time ago.

We don't know how many men exactly Lord Commander Hoare had at the Wall. The talk about 10,000 swords seems to imply this was the strength of the Watch at the time. The Watch is a military order, every brother is trained to (and expected to) fight. The rangers are the elite, but the builders and stewards are fighters, too.

As usual, you seem to be obsessed with making the North look good in comparison to everyone else. But the Watch is a military order. Everyone up there is a warrior. And the people up there are all male. 

A lord or king has to raise troops from his population in a ridiculously inefficient medieval way. The Watch doesn't have to raise troops. They live in permanent army camps until they die. They are always in armor, always ready to fight (or at least they were, for most of their existence).

Again, if cities of a populations of hundreds of thousands can maintain themselves without any food imports then nineteen 'towns' at the Wall having an average garrison of 2,500-5,000 men stretching along a Wall 300 miles long, and controlling a tract of reasonably fertile and densely populated land which covers a square of 125*300 miles - while also be supported by all the Seven Kingdoms with additional food and other supplies (weapons, armor, clothes, material, etc.) - then it is not unreasonably at all that there could have been 100,000 fighting men up there for quite some time. And certainly as many as 50,000 or 70,000.

You should also keep in mind that there were volunteers from all across the Seven Kingdoms - and still are, as many of the names in the Watch testify. If going to the Wall was once a high honor, how many men do you think would arrive up there if every man from a larger village was considering to join them?

In the good times those wandering crows would have come back with thousands of recruits in their tow, not counting the men who simply decided to join the Watch without ever meeting a black brother in real life.

Do you think they had a policy of 'No, we are too many up here now. Go back home.'?

Too much to cover, but a lot that requires a response nevertheless.

Firstly, the issue of the Roman Empire and 400,000 men. It is a diversion to protest that you never claimed the Watch had 400,000 men. That's not what I said. But you did say the Roman Empire was an example of a society that maintained a large standing army over prolonged periods of time. Well, even the Roman Empire - which FAR exceeded the logistical capability of today's Seven Kingdoms, let alone that of the primitive 100 Kingdoms of the Age of Heroes - could only maintain a standing army of around 1% of their total population. Medieval societies would be far less capable than that. This is a resource and logistical constraint, not a constraint of willpower or lack of dedication.

The Seven Kingdoms can raise 1% of their population to arms for short periods. They cannot support such a force on a permanent basis. And Westeros after the Long Night would have had FAR less people than Westeros of today.

Secondly, there is not a castle in Westeros that is permanently filled to capacity. Winterfell currently Houses upward of 7000 men. Yet under normal conditions it has a garrison of 200. The same goes for every other castle in Westeros, and in about the same proportion. The fact that Castle Black has space for 5000 fighting men doesn't mean it was ever PERMANENTLY manned by 5000 warriors. But it would need to accommodate that many warriors during times of War.

There is no reason why a garrison of a few hundred men per castle would not have been standard for thousands of years, with the three main castles maybe having a thousand each, and Castle Black a couple of thousand. Should the Others suddenly assault the Wall, ravens would fly to all the kingdoms, and those castles would fill up with fighting men from all over Westeros. But having a hundred thousand men just sit there century after century, eating food and using up resources, while nothing that could remotely require that number of men ever threatened them, for thousands of years on end, that is a ridiculous notion.

10,000 fighting men, and 20,000 Stewards and Builders, is an immense standing force to maintain. I doubt whether it ever significantly exceeded this number.

As for a city. For every city dweller, you would need 5-10 peasants toiling in the surrounding lands, growing food for the city. And the city would generate money to buy that food. If you have 100,000 men at the Wall, you are talking hundreds of thousands of people farming the Gift, just to keep the 100,000 fed. The amount of food that can be shipped in from elsewhere is limited by technology, distance and cost. The Gift would need to do most of the supporting.

And even if the entire Realm pitched in, I can't see a medieval society maintaining a 100,000 standing army for centuries on end. Westeros could not afford that.

And lastly, no, we DON'T know that the Gift goes back to the very beginning of the Watch. That's why Martin introduced that second option for us (of another Brandon being the one who donated the Gift) , because of the improbability that the Starks had control over the lands of the Gift that early in history. If the Watch started out as a few dozen men per tower in some ringforts spanning the area of the future Wall, then they would not have needed the Gift to support them. The fields in proximity to each caslte would have served them, just like a petty lord or landed knight supports himself today.

And this would be supplemented by the lords closest to them. Consider that the First Men immediately after the Long Night had not even properly mastered the seas yet.  There is no way that food was shipped in from the South over thousands of miles of ocean in any large quantity, if at all. And no Kingsroad existed. So supplying the Watch with large quantities of food from across the Realm would have been even more improbable back then than it is today. It would have been the Northern lords that gave them some of their bounty. And even then, the quantities that could be transported over any large distance would have been severely limited.

 

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49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Firstly, the issue of the Roman Empire and 400,000 men. It is a diversion to protest that you never claimed the Watch had 400,000 men. That's not what I said. But you did say the Roman Empire was an example of a society that maintained a large standing army over prolonged periods of time. Well, even the Roman Empire - which FAR exceeded the logistical capability of today's Seven Kingdoms, let alone that of the primitive 100 Kingdoms of the Age of Heroes - could only maintain a standing army of around 1% of their total population. Medieval societies would be far less capable than that. This is a resource and logistical constraint, not a constraint of willpower or lack of dedication.

The Roman legions were mostly, well, Romans. Which means Italians from Latium and the other regions of Italy that were not yet Gaul. Up until Augustus Roman veterans were paid in land and farms after their time in the army was over. The Roman armies came only from Italy (horsed auxiliary units excluded).

But Rome could have raised greatly increased the size of its armies if they had chosen to allow the people from the provinces they conquered to join their legions.

The problem of maintaining an army is that you usually don't have the infrastructure to do that. But the Night's Watch is essentially perpetually in winter camp. They are not on the move. They don't need to live off the land. They collect tribute from their peasants. And they had more than enough manpower to get huge portions of their meat by themselves (via hunting).

Not to mention, you know, that the stewards may have tended their own orchards, farms, and fields close to the castles.

Is it realistic that 10 million people once lived in Brandon's Gift? I don't know. It is pretty large tract of land. And there is no reason to believe people didn't thrive there. After all, it would have been the most peaceful peasant land of all of Westeros for millennia (until the power of the Watch declined).

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The Seven Kingdoms can raise 1% of their population to arms for short periods. They cannot support such a force on a permanent basis. And Westeros after the Long Night would have had FAR less people than Westeros of today.

Again, because they don't have the infrastructure. And they do support the equivalent of large armies in those cities of theirs. There are 500,000 people in Westeros, and pretty much none of those useless mouths is producing any food. There are no farms within the confines of the city.

An army on the move isn't a garrison in perpetual winter camp.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Secondly, there is not a castle in Westeros that is permanently filled to capacity. Winterfell currently Houses upward of 7000 men. Yet under normal conditions it has a garrison of 200. The same goes for every other castle in Westeros, and in about the same proportion.

How do you know that? There is no textual evidence for this. We don't know whether those 200 guardsmen at Winterfell are a normal garrison, nor do we know what kind of a garrison the Lannisters or Tyrells have at their castles. Somehow I think theirs are much larger.

And you should also keep in mind the insane amount of resources and workers the kings in Westeros can marshal if they want to. Harrenhal was built rather quickly, was it not? And the same goes for the Red Keep, the Dragonpit, and KL itself.

It is a problem having a garrison of 7,000 in a ruined Winterfell at the beginning of winter when you also don't happen to have enough provisions. But that is Roose's problem, not something that happens always. The Watch is usually amply provisioned.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The fact that Castle Black has space for 5000 fighting men doesn't mean it was ever PERMANENTLY manned by 5000 warriors. But it would need to accommodate that many warriors during times of War.

That doesn't make a lot of sense in light of the fact that the buildings and structures in Castle Black are crumbling. The Watch no longer has the resources to even maintain the places where their brothers once lived.

The point of additional quarters for support in times of war would be that such buildings are there in times of war. But they are not. They are ruins.

Vice versa, it is pretty clear that armies usually have sufficient manpower to actually build makeshift accommodations and the like.

The King's Tower likely is tower that is usually kept free for the (or a) king should one show up, but that's it.

In addition, we haven't even touched upon the caverns and dungeons beneath the castles - the places where the brothers usually live in winter. Those - which are apparently largely empty in summer - effectively double the quarters that are available in each castle.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

There is no reason why a garrison of a few hundred men per castle would not have been standard for thousands of years, with the three main castles maybe having a thousand each, and Castle Black a couple of thousand.

There weren't any 'main castles' as far as we know. There was the Nightfort - the main castle - and then there were seventeen others. I'm aware of the fact that some most likely were smaller and others larger, but we don't know what way. We can only use average numbers. However, it is quite clear that the Nightfort was much larger than Castle Black.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Should the Others suddenly assault the Wall, ravens would fly to all the kingdoms, and those castles would fill up with fighting men from all over Westeros. But having a hundred thousand men just sit there century after century, eating food and using up resources, while nothing that could remotely require that number of men ever threatened them, for thousands of years on end, that is a ridiculous notion.

You have still not giving any evidence that the Watch was supposed to be dependent on additional military support from the kings and lords should the Others ever arrive. I'm sure they would have given it, but the point of the Watch - the point why so many people actually hating and plotting to destroy and subdue each other would band together to found, finance, and support an order like the Night's Watch - is that they intended to effectively outsource the whole issue of the Others.

They had men swearing a solemn vow to keep the monsters out and they were willing to sacrifice a lot to make that work.

Have you ever sat down a moment and thought how strange it is that a society as fucked-up and cruel as the Hundred/Seven Kingdoms were capable of keeping an institution of the NW alive for this long? Why did no cruel or mad king - especially in the North (take a Bolton, say) ever seize the Wall and make it part of his petty kingdom?

The only answer to that is that those people collectively really, really believed that the Watch was a great thing. And they must have believed that for a really, really long time, too.

I don't think that's very realistic but it is the setting we have to deal with.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

10,000 fighting men, and 20,000 Stewards and Builders, is an immense standing force to maintain. I doubt whether it ever significantly exceeded this number.

Again, it was likely 10,000 men during the Conquest. Stewards and builders are swords, too. Every man in the Night's Watch is a warrior.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for a city. For every city dweller, you would need 5-10 peasants toiling in the surrounding lands, growing food for the city. And the city would generate money to buy that food. If you have 100,000 men at the Wall, you are talking hundreds of thousands of people farming the Gift, just to keep the 100,000 fed. The amount of food that can be shipped in from elsewhere is limited by technology, distance and cost. The Gift would need to do most of the supporting.

The Watch doesn't have to buy food from its own peasants. They would belong to the Watch and have to give them their due. Vice versa, the Targaryens, Hightowers, Lannisters, etc. most likely also don't buy the food from the peasants sitting on their lands. They just take it as rent, taxes, interest, tribute, whatever the name is.

In addition, they would also get direct food imports from the North via carts, etc. and support by ship from the entire north as far down south as, say, the Vale. But considering that men from all across the Seven Kingdoms joined the Watch lords and kings from all across the Seven Kingdoms must have felt obliged to sent support.

To this day the wandering crows are welcomed and fed by any decent lord they happen to call upon. In the earlier days this hospitality must have been far, far greater. Brothers of the Watch must have been welcomed and treated almost as high lords and kings.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And even if the entire Realm pitched in, I can't see a medieval society maintaining a 100,000 standing army for centuries on end. Westeros could not afford that.

Again, it isn't that difficult if you sit in winter camp all day. And are not concentrated in one large camp but 18-19 smaller camps.

I'm pretty sure long and harsh winters culled the NW just as much as they did cull the population elsewhere.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And lastly, no, we DON'T know that the Gift goes back to the very beginning of the Watch. That's why Martin introduced that second option for us (of another Brandon being the one who donated the Gift) , because of the improbability that the Starks had control over the lands of the Gift that early in history. If the Watch started out as a few dozen men per tower in some ringforts spanning the area of the future Wall, then they would not have needed the Gift to support them. The fields in proximity to each caslte would have served them, just like a petty lord or landed knight supports himself today.

Sorry, it could just be the fact that Brandon the Builder supposedly did a lot of things. Things a normal human being with a normal lifespan simply couldn't have done.

And keep in mind that even laying the groundwork for the Wall would have been an enormous task, involving tens of thousands of workers, even if they had giants to help them. Technically there should have been more volunteers up there in the earlier phases than later on.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And this would be supplemented by the lords closest to them. Consider that the First Men immediately after the Long Night had not even properly mastered the seas yet.  There is no way that food was shipped in from the South over thousands of miles of ocean in any large quantity, if at all.

The Ironborn presumably had, the Sistermen and Bear Islanders, too. But yes, that would be part of the reason why I'd say that the really big numbers only came later.

But then - we don't know how much of the Ironborn ancient history took part in the Age of Heroes - and that was when the Ironborn really were the wolves of the sea in the worst possible way. How the people at the east coast fared in those days isn't clear.

49 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And no Kingsroad existed. So supplying the Watch with large quantities of food from across the Realm would have been even more improbable back then than it is today. It would have been the Northern lords that gave them some of their bounty. And even then, the quantities that could be transported over any large distance would have been severely limited.

I'd say most food which came overland would have come from the North. And, you know, perhaps the Northmen's willingness to support the NW as strongly as they did crippled their own potential of population growth and economic development. Not only would have many Northmen who were needed at home have joined the Watch but they would also have sent resources up there they should have better used for themselves.

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On 11/24/2017 at 9:36 AM, Lord Varys said:

We know that the Night's Watch slowly declined. Considering that even Dorne cared to support it during Nymeria's days - and that a Qorgyle Lord Commander was the immediate predecessor of the Old Bear - it is pretty clear that it was an institution that had roots in all the Seven Kingdoms. They would have been deepest in the North, of course, but one assumes that there were times, especially in the earlier centuries before the Conquest, when volunteers from all across the Seven Kingdoms took the black.

Actually, all the evidence points that this isn't the case, and that its decline was quite rapid.

Look, guys, this is extraordinarily easy to figure out.  Who takes the Watch in the modern day?  Criminals and defeated lords/knights who were given the choice between the Wall, and execution.  The criminals always exist, but when you compare the timeline, the second half of that becomes clear.

The Watch used to support a huge number of men, because the Seven Kingdoms used to produce an amount of conflict that was far greater prior to Aegon's arrival.  In the interminable wars, skirmishes, and raids/reaving between the various kingdoms, there would have been far more captured men of noble/knightly blood, meaning more would have chosen to go to the Wall.  And because there were such large (relatively) numbers of nobles and knights at the Wall, service wouldn't have been seen as being as dishonorable as it is today, even if it wasn't a Sunday picnic.  The legacy of the stories Jon hears are evidence of this.  Thus, the Watch has a constant infusion of new recruits, who are relatively more eager to serve.  Additionally, because the prestige of the Watch is higher, more younger sons (think Waymar Royce) will join up if they have no hope of inheritance.

This cycle goes on for thousands of years, even as the more noble purpose of the Watch fades into just defending against wildling raids.  It takes a massive paradigm shift in Westerosi politics to impact this; the arrival of Aegon.  First off, Aegon begins a policy of relative clemency towards defeated foes.  Second, the reliance on draconic power means the feudal monarchy of the Iron Throne is extremely weak beneath that, as we see in later years.  Which means early Targaryens are either especially benevelont or act like tyrants, because their dragons allow them to, while later monarchs don't have a centralized enough power base to afford to be exiling or deposing lords.  Moreover, and more importantly, the advent of Targaryen hegemony means there are fewer conflicts within Westeros which generate the numbers of new "recruits" for the Watch, so the numbers fall off quickly.

Moreover, we also know that there is a maximum size of the Watch, seeing as the Gift is only 75 miles deep (so a total area of 22,500 square miles), and so only a certain number of men can be supported.  While the Watch probably retains a higher percentage of gross production that a typical feudal lord (seeing as there aren't multiple levels of subenfuedation to be passed through), that is still a relatively small base of land on which to support so many men.  So it is unlikely that the Watch was ever significantly bigger than it was at the time of Aegon's conquest; the entire history of Westeros supports the idea that the last few thousand years of Westerosi history (before Aegon) were a time of mostly stagnation; politically, demographically, and technologically there doesn't seem to be much change as the various powers compete in their Great Game-esque struggle for primacy.

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21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Roman legions were mostly, well, Romans. Which means Italians from Latium and the other regions of Italy that were not yet Gaul. Up until Augustus Roman veterans were paid in land and farms after their time in the army was over. The Roman armies came only from Italy (horsed auxiliary units excluded).

But Rome could have raised greatly increased the size of its armies if they had chosen to allow the people from the provinces they conquered to join their legions.

 

actually even at its hight the romans never recruited more then 8 legions out of italy itself and even that was in a crisis situation, the rest came from conquered people that where granted citizenship or the children of veterans that had been setteled out side italy. And this was already the case in the republic most of Julius Caesar his legions where recruited in spain not italy. Also the legions where only about 2/3 of the fighting force the rest where auxilaries who most certanly where not roman citizens.

So your notion here is wrong.

As to the discussion on the number of men manning the wall between you and @Free Northman Reborn since we seem to be taking the romans as our example you can look at Hadrians wall which was 73 miles long and had a garrison of about 7000 men give or take, so that's aproximatly 100 men per mile. The Wall is 300 miles so 100 men per mile would mean a garrison of 30000 men to have the same kind of protection that Hadrians wall gave the romans. 

so this then would be the number you would want there, weather they ever had those numbers in practice is harder to say.

I personnaly do think the watch was already in decline before Aegon came. It is not for nothing that it is stated the watch never manned more then 17 out of the 19 forts along the wall at the same time.

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58 minutes ago, direpupy said:

I personnaly do think the watch was already in decline before Aegon came. It is not for nothing that it is stated the watch never manned more then 17 out of the 19 forts along the wall at the same time.

I mean, that is a pretty high percentage of the forts built.  Furthermore, even if they have the strength to man those castles, there may be no need.  Some of them, like mini-Harrenhal's, may be white elephants.  Why spend limited resources on the upkeep of castles that serve no strategic purpose.  Deep Lake, for example, was built as a replacement for the Nightfort, and thus the Watch wasn't manning both castles at once by design.  So already, we're talking about manning 17 of 18 castles, not 17 of 19.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

actually even at its hight the romans never recruited more then 8 legions out of italy itself and even that was in a crisis situation

This isn't right, but the underlying point is, so it's fine.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

the rest came from conquered people that where granted citizenship or the children of veterans that had been setteled out side italy

Except that "Roman" is a political, not geographic term, so it is perfectly reasonable to state that the majority of the fighting strength of the legion comes from Romans.  But again, your underlying point about the importance of the auxilia is correct.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

The Wall is 300 miles so 100 men per mile would mean a garrison of 30000 men to have the same kind of protection that Hadrians wall gave the romans. 

First off, we know that at it's zenith, the Watch had 10,000 fighting men.  If you take the traditional breakdown between Builders, Stewards, and Rangers are a long-standing division of strength, that gives 30,000 total men.

More importantly, the Wall requires less manpower to guard than a real-world defensive system.  Hadrian's Wall wasn't meant to stop invading armies, and it's scale is obviously not even close to that of the Wall.  It was between 10-20 feet high and was more of a political/economic statement than a fortification system; it would be easy for invaders to scale that en masse.  The Wall, by contrast, almost needs no actual manning unless facing a literal invasion by the Others; it's height is so daunting that even seasoned warriors take massive casualties in climbing it, and it wouldn't be viable to expect a significant number of invaders to cross it.  So it need not be as densely defended as real-world fortifications, because its height is so fantastic that it doesn't require staffing.

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18 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

I mean, that is a pretty high percentage of the forts built.  Furthermore, even if they have the strength to man those castles, there may be no need.  Some of them, like mini-Harrenhal's, may be white elephants.  Why spend limited resources on the upkeep of castles that serve no strategic purpose.  Deep Lake, for example, was built as a replacement for the Nightfort, and thus the Watch wasn't manning both castles at once by design.  So already, we're talking about manning 17 of 18 castles, not 17 of 19.

Actually that was the point i was trying to make, there where forts that where abandoned for new smaller forts because they no longer had the manpower to maintain the bigger ones. sorry if that was not clear from wat i said.

21 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

This isn't right, but the underlying point is, so it's fine.

Actually it is right the most legions recruited from italy was during the second punic war when they raised 13 legions against Hannibal and Carthage, only 8 of which where actually raised in italy proper. And that was a doubling of what they would normally raise from there. I do know that there is still debate over this and that some schollars still insist that they where all raised in italy so i do understand where you are coming from.

26 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

Except that "Roman" is a political, not geographic term, so it is perfectly reasonable to state that the majority of the fighting strength of the legion comes from Romans.  But again, your underlying point about the importance of the auxilia is correct.

Perhaps you should read the post i was responding to again, where Lord Varys says romans all come from italy. So he was not stating that the legions came from romans but soley from italy, which is wrong. Thats why i pointed out the citizenship thing to him, which is indeed political in nature again the very point i was making.

31 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

First off, we know that at it's zenith, the Watch had 10,000 fighting men.  If you take the traditional breakdown between Builders, Stewards, and Rangers are a long-standing division of strength, that gives 30,000 total men.

Actually we do not know if that is the zenith, it is just the number of men that where there when Aegon invaded.

33 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

More importantly, the Wall requires less manpower to guard than a real-world defensive system.  Hadrian's Wall wasn't meant to stop invading armies, and it's scale is obviously not even close to that of the Wall.  It was between 10-20 feet high and was more of a political/economic statement than a fortification system; it would be easy for invaders to scale that en masse.  The Wall, by contrast, almost needs no actual manning unless facing a literal invasion by the Others; it's height is so daunting that even seasoned warriors take massive casualties in climbing it, and it wouldn't be viable to expect a significant number of invaders to cross it.  So it need not be as densely defended as real-world fortifications, because its height is so fantastic that it doesn't require staffing.

Certainly it is more impressive then Hadrians wall, but we know you can climb it so it still has to be manned. And the 100 men per mile at Hadrians wall where not they only defence, there where 8000 more men in the fortresses in the hinterland of the wall who would be warned of invading tribesman via signal lights and then come to they aid of the men on the wall. So the total number of men under the Dux Britanniarum who was responsible for the defence was actually approximatly 15000 men. The purpose of Hadrians wall was not a political/economic statement, it was very much a defensive structure where the troops stationed there would hold they enemy off untill the reinforcements arrived from the hinterland.

So i do not agree about the staffing not being needed.

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2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Actually, all the evidence points that this isn't the case, and that its decline was quite rapid.

The thing is, we have no evidence as to when the idea that criminals or defeated foes could be sent to the Wall developed. The earliest precedent for that is Nymeria, and she was only seven hundred years before the Conquest. At that time the Watch would have already been in decline.

There are no hints that the ancient First Men and Andal kings sent their defeated foes to the Wall - neither defeated/toppled kings/lords nor foot soldiers.

In fact, the modus operandi we get in TWoIaF as well as in the novels is that defeated foes are usually spared if they bent the knee. They are accepted (back) into the king's peace. Even rebels can be treated kindly if they hand over hostages.

The idea that hundreds or thousands of enemy soldiers were sent to the Wall instead of, you know, being sent back to their homes due to the fact that they just followed the orders of their rightful lord or king doesn't hold much water. And it would go completely against the original purpose of the Watch to recruit themselves from such people. Those sworn brothers of the Night's Watch volunteer for the job. They swear a vow. If the punishment of rebels and criminals came a part of the Watch early on in their existence the lords and kings would have eventually transformed the Watch from a military order of volunteers to a prison camp - which it never became.

And it is not that the Watch doesn't come up as an option for traitors and rebels and the like. It is always there, but people usually go for capital punishment, mutilation, or even exile before they sent someone to the Wall.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

This cycle goes on for thousands of years, even as the more noble purpose of the Watch fades into just defending against wildling raids.  It takes a massive paradigm shift in Westerosi politics to impact this; the arrival of Aegon.  First off, Aegon begins a policy of relative clemency towards defeated foes.  Second, the reliance on draconic power means the feudal monarchy of the Iron Throne is extremely weak beneath that, as we see in later years.  Which means early Targaryens are either especially benevelont or act like tyrants, because their dragons allow them to, while later monarchs don't have a centralized enough power base to afford to be exiling or deposing lords.  Moreover, and more importantly, the advent of Targaryen hegemony means there are fewer conflicts within Westeros which generate the numbers of new "recruits" for the Watch, so the numbers fall off quickly.

That is actually factually wrong. The Targaryens deposed or exiled a lot of lords, both while they still had dragons and thereafter. Daeron II forced a lot of lords into exile, and demoted countless others.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Moreover, we also know that there is a maximum size of the Watch, seeing as the Gift is only 75 miles deep (so a total area of 22,500 square miles), and so only a certain number of men can be supported.  While the Watch probably retains a higher percentage of gross production that a typical feudal lord (seeing as there aren't multiple levels of subenfuedation to be passed through), that is still a relatively small base of land on which to support so many men.  So it is unlikely that the Watch was ever significantly bigger than it was at the time of Aegon's conquest; the entire history of Westeros supports the idea that the last few thousand years of Westerosi history (before Aegon) were a time of mostly stagnation; politically, demographically, and technologically there doesn't seem to be much change as the various powers compete in their Great Game-esque struggle for primacy.

That would really depend on the amount of people that once lived there, wouldn't it? The Crownlands - which aren't that large or populated, either (especially if you consider Crackclaw Point and the Kingswood) - not only feed the 500,000 people of King's Landing but also the dozens of lords of the Crownlands as well as their garrison, including the town of Duskendale.

Vice versa, we do know that the virtual depopulated Gifts still feed the remaining about 1,000 men at the Wall. If that's the case a much more populated Gift could also have fed a much stronger Watch.

In addition, one also has to keep in mind that many noblemen - as well as the Watch - usually have have farms, orchards, etc. that are directly in their possession and maintained by their own men. The Watch could have had such holdings, too, farms close to the Wall which were worked and maintained not by peasants from the Gifts but by black brothers (stewards, most likely) themselves.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

actually even at its hight the romans never recruited more then 8 legions out of italy itself and even that was in a crisis situation, the rest came from conquered people that where granted citizenship or the children of veterans that had been setteled out side italy. And this was already the case in the republic most of Julius Caesar his legions where recruited in spain not italy. Also the legions where only about 2/3 of the fighting force the rest where auxilaries who most certanly where not roman citizens.

I'm no expert on Roman military history, but a quick research seems to indicate that Marius came up with the idea to reward veterans with land. The auxiliary units also included non-citizens but the Roman legions were exclusively Roman citizens in those days, Roman citizenship was first extended in the wake of the Social War (91-88 BC) and then later by Caesar so that it included all of Italy up to the Alps. 

The auxiliary units accompanying a legion were made up out of foreigners and allies, but the legions themselves were Romans until things changed later in the Empire (in 212 AD we have Caracalla extending citizenship to essentially all freeborn men in the Empire).

Until Augustus veterans were also always settled in Italy. Settling veterans outside of Italy was a later development. In fact, the whole thing of paying legionaries with land is a custom that seems to have developed from Marius onwards, helping to destroy the Republic considering that the soldiers needed their generals to force the Senate to give them land.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

As to the discussion on the number of men manning the wall between you and @Free Northman Reborn since we seem to be taking the romans as our example you can look at Hadrians wall which was 73 miles long and had a garrison of about 7000 men give or take, so that's aproximatly 100 men per mile. The Wall is 300 miles so 100 men per mile would mean a garrison of 30000 men to have the same kind of protection that Hadrians wall gave the romans. 

Hadrian's Wall might be the inspiration for the Wall but it isn't the Wall. The Wall is much larger and serves a completely different purpose.

A major difference there is that Britannia wasn't exactly the main interest and most precious province of the Romans. They built a wall there, yes, but they never put all/most of their resources on the task of keeping ice demons on the other sides.

That is the purpose of the Wall and the Night's Watch the Hundred Kingdoms established. And the people and their rulers very much believed that this threat was dead serious for centuries and millennia.

If you live in such a setting you can do more than sending 30,000 men up there.

But I'm not insisting on this number of 100,000. I just tossed that out as a potential number during the very peak of the Night's Watch strength. It could have just as well been 50,000 or 70,000.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

I personnaly do think the watch was already in decline before Aegon came. It is not for nothing that it is stated the watch never manned more then 17 out of the 19 forts along the wall at the same time.

The nineteenth castle, Deep Lake, was only built after the Nightfort was abandoned. So the Watch never had more than eighteen castles at a time.

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19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Until Augustus veterans were also always settled in Italy. Settling veterans outside of Italy was a later development. In fact, the whole thing of paying legionaries with land is a custom that seems to have developed from Marius onwards, helping to destroy the Republic considering that the soldiers needed their generals to force the Senate to give them land.

That is most certainly not true i guess you went to wikipedia for this because i can't imagine where else you got this idea. Hell the so called praemia was not even always payed in land sometimes it was paid in coin. But before Augustus veterans where allready setteld outside italy. The whole point of veteran settelment was to integrate the newly conquered territory more firmly into the republic/empire.

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm no expert on Roman military history, but a quick research seems to indicate that Marius came up with the idea to reward veterans with land. The auxiliary units also included non-citizens but the Roman legions were exclusively Roman citizens in those days, Roman citizenship was first extended in the wake of the Social War (91-88 BC) and then later by Caesar so that it included all of Italy up to the Alps. 

Yes they where only roman citizens but roman citizens did not exclusivly live in italy, and by the point you get to number of 400000 for the roman army, roman citizenship had already been extended to far beyond italy. So your point that including non romans could have greatly increased there army numbers remains false. espesially because with the auxillarys they already included non-citizens.

 

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Hadrian's Wall might be the inspiration for the Wall but it isn't the Wall. The Wall is much larger and serves a completely different purpose.

A major difference there is that Britannia wasn't exactly the main interest and most precious province of the Romans. They built a wall there, yes, but they never put all/most of their resources on the task of keeping ice demons on the other sides.

That is the purpose of the Wall and the Night's Watch the Hundred Kingdoms established. And the people and their rulers very much believed that this threat was dead serious for centuries and millennia.

If you live in such a setting you can do more than sending 30,000 men up there.

But I'm not insisting on this number of 100,000. I just tossed that out as a potential number during the very peak of the Night's Watch strength. It could have just as well been 50,000 or 70,000.

The nineteenth castle, Deep Lake, was only built after the Nightfort was abandoned. So the Watch never had more than eighteen castles at a time.

Sure but thats why i said that you would want at least as many men per mile as they had on Hadrians wall, less would make no sence. Actually in the hinterland of Hadrians wall there where other fotresses the total number of men under the Dux Britanniarum was not just the 7000 on the wall but a total of 15000 with they other 8000 in the hinterland.

As to the number of castles the point was they never manned all of them at the same time, they built smaller ones to replace the ones they could not maintain because of lak of manpower.

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1 hour ago, cpg2016 said:

I mean, that is a pretty high percentage of the forts built.  Furthermore, even if they have the strength to man those castles, there may be no need.  Some of them, like mini-Harrenhal's, may be white elephants.  Why spend limited resources on the upkeep of castles that serve no strategic purpose.  Deep Lake, for example, was built as a replacement for the Nightfort, and thus the Watch wasn't manning both castles at once by design.  So already, we're talking about manning 17 of 18 castles, not 17 of 19.

It is not that important that we go with all or most the castles. We know that Castle Black is virtual empty while there 600 men stationed there. It is that large. And we know that the Nightfort is much, much larger than Castle Black.

We also know that Stannis' army doesn't have to camp out in the dirt or anything, they are in the castle and it is still not bursting, and we do know that the Shieldhall is large enough so that all the wildlings can assemble there, etc.

Those buildings have been built for a reason, and it is a sign of the weakness of the Watch that - despite there being 600 men at Castle Black - they can no longer even maintain the buildings that are there - only those that are still used are in reasonably good shape.

All that gives us a hint that those two castles at least were built to house thousands of black brothers at least. And we can extrapolate from that somewhat. There were likely smaller and bigger castles, etc. but you get a decent enough number even if you go by 2,500-3,000 men per castle and reduce the total number of used castles to 15, say.

1 hour ago, cpg2016 said:

First off, we know that at it's zenith, the Watch had 10,000 fighting men.  If you take the traditional breakdown between Builders, Stewards, and Rangers are a long-standing division of strength, that gives 30,000 total men.

As I say above, this seems to be a mistake. All the black brothers are counted as warriors. Which means Lord Commander Hoare's ten thousands swords wouldn't have been 10,000 rangers but 10,000 black brothers. They are a military order. They are all expected to fight. The rangers are just the elite.

We also don't know whether the ratio between the orders is usually a third each. It would depend on the quality and talents of the men that take the black.

1 hour ago, cpg2016 said:

More importantly, the Wall requires less manpower to guard than a real-world defensive system.  Hadrian's Wall wasn't meant to stop invading armies, and it's scale is obviously not even close to that of the Wall.  It was between 10-20 feet high and was more of a political/economic statement than a fortification system; it would be easy for invaders to scale that en masse.  The Wall, by contrast, almost needs no actual manning unless facing a literal invasion by the Others; it's height is so daunting that even seasoned warriors take massive casualties in climbing it, and it wouldn't be viable to expect a significant number of invaders to cross it.  So it need not be as densely defended as real-world fortifications, because its height is so fantastic that it doesn't require staffing.

That could have been technically true at the point the Watch had reached its insane height. But that in and of itself would have taken centuries or even millennia. We learn the earlier lord commanders used to leave the Wall a little bit higher to their successors. The present decline seems to include the Wall, too. The signs are subtle, but we learn that the stones on the top melt into the ice, the ice steps at the Nightfort are nearly gone, etc. The Wall seems to shrink slowly (unless it can sort of absorb a lot of snow during the long winters and thus regain the substance it loses in summer).

But the entire point of the Night's Watch is to be there and ready when the Others come. And while the people of the Hundred/Seven Kingdoms still believed they would come one day - which must have been a strong belief in their heads for a long time - many men would have taken the black voluntarily.

There would have been times where taking the black was the greatest honor for a man in Westeros. Especially before the arrival of the Andals.

One imagines that the slow but inevitable decline of the Watch began when knighthood and tourneys came, and men really could gain honor and meaning in their lives in different ways. The Faith and the Citadel also offered different career paths, so that would have contributed to the decline, too.

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20 minutes ago, direpupy said:

Actually it is right the most legions recruited from italy was during the second punic war when they raised 13 legions against Hannibal and Carthage, only 8 of which where actually raised in italy proper. And that was a doubling of what they would normally raise from there. I do know that there is still debate over this and that some schollars still insist that they where all raised in italy so i do understand where you are coming from.

Well, technically, they also raised most of the 100,000 men they lost at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae in Italy as well, and these were all occuring within the same short time period, so my point was more to the fact that the Italian population could support an armed forces well in excess of 8 legions at once if the Senate desired it.

33 minutes ago, direpupy said:

Actually we do not know if that is the zenith, it is just the number of men that where there when Aegon invaded.

I'm actually wrong on the low side.  Castle Black once housed 5,000 fighting men, according to AGOT Ch. 19, which means 15,000 men for that castle alone by our given breakdown.  We have no idea how that compares relative to the size of the whole Watch, but even assuming current ratios, that means Castle Black was housing approximately half the fighting strength of the Watch.

35 minutes ago, direpupy said:

Certainly it is more impressive then Hadrians wall, but we know you can climb it so it still has to be manned. And the 100 men per mile at Hadrians wall where not they only defence, there where 8000 more men in the fortresses in the hinterland of the wall who would be warned of invading tribesman via signal lights and then come to they aid of the men on the wall.

The legions stationed in Britannia during the Pax Romana were the II Augusta, XX Valeria, and VI Victrix.  None of those legionary encampments were stationed at/along Hadrian's Wall, and even if you assume that there were significant vexellations guarding it, one cannot reasonably conclude that the main legionary forces were in any position to come to the aid of an immediate attack.  Indeed, Roman fortifications all along the limites were more about defense-in-depth than preventing crossings.  I'd be highly interested to know where you're sourcing those numbers.

32 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The thing is, we have no evidence as to when the idea that criminals or defeated foes could be sent to the Wall developed. The earliest precedent for that is Nymeria, and she was only seven hundred years before the Conquest. At that time the Watch would have already been in decline.

I don't have the knowledge or the math for it, but there is a maximum yield of the soil up there, and an accepted minimum caloric intake which dictates how many men could be supported per mile.  If you take an aggressive estimate of 30 people/square mile (which is on the high end of populous Scottish counties in the medieval period, and we'll say that geographically equivalent to the North), that is a population of a 675,000.  If we extrapolate the old "1% of a medieval country's population can be kept under arms" rule, we get to like 4-5 million, tops, for the entire North (which seems about right).  It seems extremely hard for me to believe 10-15% of that was in the Gift at any one time.  More likely, it's a tiny fraction.  Even if it's half that number, it means that, at 325,000, it means that the Gift can only support something like 30-35,000 men, which is probably close to the total strength of the Watch at it's height (see above).  Obviously a lot of extrapolation there.... but now I have to run.  Will update this post later

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