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The Wall, the Watch and a heresy


Black Crow

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Hmm ... something to think about, as always having read your posts, guys! Thanks for that!

I have been looking at the maps (Geography). We know something about what lies north of the Wall, but not much.

Is it possible that the lands in northern Westeros are or were somehow attached to the Eastern part of Essos?

I always thought the only way we can see large numbers of Dothraki screamers in Westeros, led by some Khal or by Dany, was by a large number of ships or in a more magical way by reinstating the Stepstones as a land bridge.

If you could travel by land from Westeros to Essos by the northern route, then the Wall could be raised to keep not northerlings but easterlings out of Westeros - or to keep westerlings out of Essos.

By the way, in a re-read of Arya's POV it struck me that there are individual Dothraki that were not afraid to cross the narrow sea. Arya has met some.

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Is it possible that the lands in northern Westeros are or were somehow attached to the Eastern part of Essos?

I always thought the only way we can see large numbers of Dothraki screamers in Westeros, led by some Khal or by Dany, was by a large number of ships or in a more magical way by reinstating the Stepstones as a land bridge.

Yeah. What if the shadow near Asshai is a wormhole or a portal? Don't the Others have the ability to bring an endless night with them. That shadow near Asshai could be something they caused, or better yet, it could be where they're originally from.

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Yeah: To go north, you must go south...

And there is an awfully convenient parallel between the destruction of Hardhome and Valyria.

And so far only R'hllor (whatever that name means in truth...) and the Others are able to bring the dead back to 'life'.

And I don't trust those shadowbinder people, and people wearing masks.

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I had started to think this about Geography as well. Could the Shadowlands actually wrap around to become the north? I think this would mean an equator (if the world is round and such a thing exists would go diagonally South West corner to North East corner on the 3rd map down on this link

http://wightsvsdragons.tripod.com/id6.html (not sure how to credit the creator but well done)

I know this isnt an official map but could it work?

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To pile heresy upon heresy I’d like to expand on my theory that the Others and the Children are one and the same, by looking at the Wall and the Nights Watch.

The Wall is a 700 foot high barrier of solid ice, supposedly constructed by Bran the Builder with the aid of the Children. Like Hadrian’s Wall which provided GRRM with his inspiration we can reasonably suppose that Bran himself had very little to do with it since building a structure on this scale required the magic of the Children rather than the labour of men, but lets not argue about that because there seems to be no doubt about the involvement of the Children.

Its when we start to look at the purpose of the Wall that things start to get a little sticky because it was all so very long ago – a whole 8,000 years ago. To put this in context, the current action in Westeros is taking place 300 years after Aegon’s Conquest, which for reference purposes we can equate to William of Normandy’s Conquest of England in 1066. Scroll back 1,000 years and we have the Roman invasion of Celtic Britain in AD 43. The Iron Age (or if you prefer the arrival of the Andals) is reckoned to have started around 650 years before that, and the Bronze age as long ago as 2,000 years before the arrival of the Romans. So far as recorded histories go, the Biblical Old Testament goes back less than 4,000 years and includes stories of kings ruling for hundreds of years, all of which gives considerable point to the words of Samwell Tarly:

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it.

Not surprising really and when we have GRRM expressing his fondness for using the “unreliable narrator” and giving point to it by not just writing this passage into AFfC but repeating it word for word in ADwD we too need to question the orthodoxy of everything we’ve been told thus far about the Children, the Others and the Wall, especially as all sorts of (metaphorical) cracks are appearing.

Supposedly, after the Others were defeated the Wall was built to prevent their return, yet there’s an immediate contradiction here in that we have an enemy who comes out of the cold and yet the barrier is built of ice rather than fire. There’s also a second contradiction in that if the Children helped raise up this barrier they left themselves on the wrong side of it which rather defeats the object of the exercise.

This is why I’ve suggested in the past that the Wall was not built to defend Westeros against the Others, but that the Children are the Others and that it was built as their bastion against the threat from the south. There is magic in the Wall certainly, but does it work both ways and if it’s critical to the security of the Wall where does the Nights Watch come into it?

The Wall we’re told, is safe so long as the Nights Watch remains true, but what exactly does this mean? We know that the Watch have fought amongst themselves in the past so a little matter of sticking a knife into the current Lord Commander isn’t necessarily a trigger for destruction by itself. There’s got to be something more to it.

Consider the oath:

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Nights Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.

It can be read straightforwardly as meaning that they are to watch over the realm through the dark of the night, when all those terrors that so exercise Mel the Red Witch supposedly abound, but what if its changed. The fact they wear black and emphasise the darkness, embraced by Bloodraven and the Children, can be read as contradicting rather than complementing the bit about fire and light.

At first sight this might sound a touch unlikely but then there’s the matter of the Night’s King, supposedly a good guy who fell in love with one of the Others and magically enslaved his own men. Suppose that’s mince – suppose that what really happened was that the Nights Watch were originally allied to the Children/Others, but for some reason changed sides and justified themselves by claiming that those still loyal to the children were ensorcelled?

Could discovery of this explain why Bloodraven, himself a Lord Commander of the Watch, went over to the Children – after learning the truth, just as Jon may be about to do?

I can agree that there may be some mileage to the idea that there is more to the children than the stories let on, but this is a massive stretch.

Your arguing the children of the forest deliberately created a barrier that was 100% effective against their own allies the Others, but to their enemies was simply a thick wall of ice that could be tunnelled through, or they could sail around. Furthermore the Nightfort (which I'm assuming has been there as long as the Wall) was created with no defenses to the South by either them or their supporters; the Night's watch.

This would have to be the single most stupid defensive measure ever and makes no sense. It makes it impossible for their own most powerful forces to ever take the fight to the enemy and easy for humanity to keep them boxed in indefinitely. If they wanted to keep humans out from the South why bother with the magic at all, or even better why not make it effective against people? A defense is intended to be more of an impediment to the opposition than it is to your side.

Your also claiming that the Nights watch were originally allied with the Others and swapped sides, because they wear black and that means they could have originally been in opposition to Rholler and his forces. This seems to be stretching things to the limit. Occam's Razor; there are far more simple answers to explain the watch's dress code, I always thought they wore black because it doesn't allow them to show any House sigils or colours in accordance with the Night's watch Oath.

Surely if there is any truth to the Night's King legend then what makes him remarkable is the fact that he was seduced by the others, otherwise wouldn't there be multiple legends about all of his predecessors as well?

What i don't understand is why you would ever think that the children and the others are the same to begin with. Whenever they have been viewed the others have been consistently aggresive towards men and all other living things, including animals. The children are living things, who saved bran's life and appear to care deeply for nature. In fact their entire culture appears to be rooted in the natural world, surely this makes them natural enemies to the Others? It seems that there is plenty more to be revealed about the Children and the Others; I don't deny that, but at present the books suggest that the two are quite different and in opposition.

I agree that "historic" accounts of the children are likely to be skewed, distorted or inaccurate, especially given the time scales you mention. But why have no legends at all survived that have established this link between them and the others?

Plenty of accounts exist to suggest a close alliance between the children and the first men against the others, these are backed by (albeit potentially circumstantial) evidence; for instance the shared religion between the two groups and the gifts of obsidian that the children used to make to the Nights watch. However no accounts; either in history or in myth, have survived to suggest that the Children and the Others were ever allied at any stage.

You are suggesting that the truth of the matter is in complete opposition to the accepted position. This isn't a case of having two conflicting narratives about the children being passed down by men through their legends and having one favoured over another. Only one narrative exists. Why would this be the case? Why would men create an image of the Children in their legends that was completely inaccurate, when they could have passed down stories that reflected the truth just as easily?

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I can agree that there may be some mileage to the idea that there is more to the children than the stories let on, but this is a massive stretch.

Long long post... and I have to start off by saying that the OP is the culmination of many pages of arguments on a whole wagon-load of threads way before this one, so forgive me if I keep this short.

GRRM has warned us that nothing is as it seems. That bit about the obsidian was prefaced by Sam's warning about the unreliability of the histories - a warning so important that GRRM included it in two different books. Magic is involved on both sides which is why the magical barrier of ice was required, if it was just a matter of stopping men coming up from the south (or down from the north) there would be no need of it. Rather than creatures of Ice this Wall is intended to stop creatures of Fire - such as dragons - not men; neither the Free Folk who raid across it nor the men of the Watch who go chasing after them.

As to the Night's King, is it not significant that the Wall is built and manned by a Night's Watch in the Darkness, that the secret weirwood portal under the Wall is situated where the Nightsfort now stands, and that a Nights King who commanded the Nights Watch was married to one of the Others, but when part of the Watch was no longer true, the Wall fell and it was put about that those who were loyal to the Nights King had merely been ensorcelled.

Just to digress very slightly, as I mentioned earlier this business of the Wall falling when the horn is blown shouldn't be taken literally. I really don't see it physically collapsing, rather it is going to fall to the enemy, and the way things are shaping up I wouldn't be at all surprised to find Jon staggering to his feet again not as AA come again but as the Night's King come again, and that the Wall will fall once again back into the hands of those who built it.

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I think there is something fishy about all the stories of the Nightfort, why did everything terrible have to happen there?

The story of Danny Flint, the Rat's Cook, the 79 sentinels, the Night's King, the thing that came in the night and some more IIRC. I wonder when all these stories began and what of it that is true... I am positive not all are true, if any.

It feels like someone along the way just wanted th Nightfort to be considered a terrible place, where you should not want to go. And that they especially did not want people going down the tunnels. Where the thing that comes in the night lurks...

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And in AGoT:

Bran's fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. "But the children of the forest are all gone now, you said."

"Here they are," said Osha... "North of the Wall, things are different. That's where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races."

My emphasis: Can't get any clearer than that; the children etc.went and took refuge on the other side of the Wall

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And in AGoT:

Bran's fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. "But the children of the forest are all gone now, you said."

"Here they are," said Osha... "North of the Wall, things are different. That's where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races."

My emphasis: Can't get any clearer than that; the children etc.went and took refuge on the other side of the Wall

If someone described my holiday last year they would say "Capon Breath went on holiday"

It wouldnt mean I took refuge in Italy or that I was in league with a supernatural undead force. I really dont think that 1 word add any weight to the debate TBH.

EDIT : Better thought through reply :

I chose to go on holiday and people would say went.

I had to be paid to go work today - people would say I went

I had no choice bu to go to the bank on the way home, people would say I went.

I think in this instance its just a word.

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True - but they might have gone & not come back for :

better views

they prefer the cold

more of their natural food sources

to be closer to some mystical source

because they like a change

noisy neighbours

That they went and didnt come back appears to be fact, linking that to "and so that proves they built the wall to protect themselves from the South" seems like a huge leap of faith with little to back it up.

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I did acknowledge in the thread title that this argument might be regarded as heresy, but I expect a lot better from GRRM than the Amazon write-up for Winds of Winter. :cool4:

Its not about heresy, its about making an argument thats supported by the facts.

Your argument raises numerous questions about the motivations of the Children, the Others and the watch that then need to be answered. You haven't explained why the children would create a magical barrier that prevents the others crossing. If they were allied this would be very stupid, if they were enemies it makes a lot of sense.

You're suggesting that the watch were originally allied with the Children and the Others; aside from wondering why any men would rationally do this, this begs the question of why didn't they build the Nightfort on the North side of the wall, or at least make it defensible to attack from the south.

You suggest that the wall was created to prevent creatures of fire from going North, but what creatures exactly? There is no reason to believe that any dragons were involved in the long night on the basis of what has been revealed in the books and I don't know of any other such creatures.

Also a lot of the points that you raise have far more simple explanations: For instance why is the wall made of ice? it is simply the most widely available building material. The children have indeed taken refuge beyond the wall in modern times, but this is most likely simply due to the fact that there aren't many people there. It doesn't suggest that this was the result of some kind of master plan to build a Northern refuge for themselves; they're not exactly doing well up North. they're still outnumbered by people and are dwindling in numbers.

As Richard Dawkins says if you make remarkable claims then they need to be supported by remarkable evidence. Your arguments are certainly interesting but on the whole they seem to run contrary to the evidence that the books have provided.

Breaking the Stepstones was the first attempt to keep the invaders out; Moat Cailin was the second. It makes sense that the Wall might be the third.

Brandon's Gift is flat and treeless. A battle field, or just an empty plain kept that way to avoid surprises from the south?

I'm pretty sure that the gift is largely treeless because it is farmed during the summer, even if it was originally designed to be flat then trees will have invaded over the past milennia anyway.

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And yet its there... and the weirwood portal can only be opened by a man of the Night's Watch, or perhaps by a man of the Nights Watch sworn to the weirwoods, a true man of the Nights Watch.

Exactly, that is what I think too.

I think the only men that was allowed to the north side was the ones that had swore to the CotF (before a weirwood) to defend the Wall.

The part of the vow that Sam said was discussed in another thread you may have seen. I thought it was interesting that he only had to say a certain part of it to be let through the gate, the task-specific part, not the "hold no lands, take no wife..." part.

To me it seems like the part he said probably was the original vow since the weirwood gate has been there since the beginning of the Wall and probably the Night's Watch too. The rest was probably added later on for some stupid political reason.

It is rather convenient for the other lords of the realm that the Night's Watch can't have families. In past times they were a strong force that could have become a threatening enemy if a commander decided to start playing in politics and building a "house", take a name, have heirs, with access to all that land.

Breaking the Stepstones was the first attempt to keep the invaders out; Moat Cailin was the second. It makes sense that the Wall might be the third.

Brandon's Gift is flat and treeless. A battle field, or just an empty plain kept that way to avoid surprises from the south?

It is a fine view from the Wall, an enemy approaching can be spotted early and there is no way around it since the watch has all the land from the west coast to the east, the Watch can see even further to the south than the north. That is very interesting!

I think that Winterfell and maybe Last Hearth is outpost of sorts to the Wall to, originally. Protected by the Wolves and Giants breaking free respectively.

The Children wanted to bring down the hammer of water to the Neck to according to myth, to stop the invasion from the south, but came to some sort of understanding with the crannogmen and did not do it. The crannogmen still live there in isolation, protecting their secrets well.

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Hmm ... thinking about a hammer of water (in Eira's post), what would happen if a 700ft wall of ice would melt - by magic or by dragonfire - in a very short time? A devastating tsunami? I don't know if the higher grounds are north of south of the wall, but could the wall be a defence mechanism that works two ways. As a barriere and as a means to flood or split land so your enemy cannot pass easily?

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Hmm ... thinking about a hammer of water, what would happen if a 700ft wall of ice would melt - by magic or by dragonfire - in a very short time? A devastating tsunami? I dont; know if the higher grounds are north of south of the wall, but could the wall be a defence mechanism that works two ways. As a barriere and as a means to flood or split land so your enemy cannot pass easily?

IIRC it also wider than the kingsroad in many places?

Someone on the board must surely be the sciency type who could work out an estimate cubic tonnage & westeros flood coverage if it went....?

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I like this flash flood idea a lot. :drool:

IIRC it also wider than the kingsroad in many places?

Someone on the board must surely be the sciency type who could work out an estimate cubic tonnage & westeros flood coverage if it went....?

That would require a big assumption because we don't know how thick the Wall is (or do we?).

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