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Can & Should King Jon send Men to The Wall?


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8 minutes ago, Cron said:

I'm a HUGE fan of GRRM, and I think his books are literally works of genius, but one of my biggest beefs has always been this idea that the Night's Watch is made up heavily from the scum of society (including many violent criminals of the worst sort imaginable), yet most of the time the Night's Watch functions just fine, they supposedly honor their oaths, rarely desert, and are reliable defenders of the Wall.

In my opinion, if the Night's Watch was real, the "bad guys" would have wiped out all the good guys a LONG time ago, and the Wall would have been abandoned.

So what's my point, as it applies to this thread?  The Wall needs to be reinforced and manned by LOTS of good troops from all 7 kingdoms, A.S.A.P.

 

You should look it in this account that after 8000 years, most of Westeros people don't believe in WW anymore. That's why they don't see NW as some kind of serious organization anymore.

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23 minutes ago, Vastet said:

Not every defensive battle has to be fought from a defensive position you know. You could never win against the Walkers from a defensive position unless the Walkers attacked directly. Which we saw at Hardhome is not how they engage in battle. Only one Walker actually took part, the rest watched from afar and let the dead do all the work. As long as the Walkers live, the battle won't end. In order to kill the Walkers, the living will need to attack. Whether or not the Wall comes down, it will be easier and safer to mount an attack from South of the Wall.

Well, let us think again. We already had one Long Night in which humans almost lost until Azor Ahai saved them. But it doesn't look like he've killed Night King and his White Walkers since they are still alive at the moment. I see two options here: either WWs have been forced to sleep for thousands of years or they retreated willingly behind the Wall.

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21 minutes ago, TheSmallOther said:

Well, let us think again. We already had one Long Night in which humans almost lost until Azor Ahai saved them. But it doesn't look like he've killed Night King and his White Walkers since they are still alive at the moment. I see two options here: either WWs have been forced to sleep for thousands of years or they retreated willingly behind the Wall.

and the humans won w/o any such Wall. ;)

 

re. the OP ... No.  I think as King in/of the North, Jon should get every northerner into Winterfell and prepare to defend it.  he already has walls there.  good walls.  and i think enought room/space to shelter most ofthe North.  winterfell is very large.  the individual Houses can each be given secitons to repair and upgrade and reside in.  then all of winterfell and its walls are adequately manned.  he does have the duty to defend the people of the North.  and he needs to do it in obvious ways, esp after Robb left the people to the mercy of the iron born.

 

the wall ... is too large to defend.  maybe with the armed forces of the entire 7 kingdoms and dragons it could be done.  but i doubt the North can muster up enough troops to do this. espeically now.  too many lightly or undefended points; if the wall itself cannot stop the Dead, the forces on the wall would be outflanked, cut off from help and from their families (now at the mercy of the Dead),  and able to be simply rolled up and destroyed.  remember -- the fortifications facing south are basically non-existent.

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28 minutes ago, TheSmallOther said:

If the wall falls? Come on. There is no "if". Benjen said it clearly - while The Wall stands, the dead cannot pass because of Wall's magic. Meaning if they cannot pass, show can call the end. So, sooner or later the wall will have to go down.

The wall may fall, but I think the wall could be made irrelevant. If this winter is going to be very cold the sea will freeze and the wights and White walkers can simply go around it. Right?

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37 minutes ago, Chib said:

You should look it in this account that after 8000 years, most of Westeros people don't believe in WW anymore. That's why they don't see NW as some kind of serious organization anymore.

Well, I hear you, and that makes sense, but what I'm saying is that I'm VERY skeptical that after many long years (centuries, actually) of decline, with shrinking membership (especially "good guy" membership), the Night's Watch could or would have survived even in as good of a condition as it was in when Jon first arrived there in AGOT.

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3 minutes ago, Thror Baratheon said:

and the humans won w/o any such Wall. ;)

 

re. the OP ... No.  I think as King in/of the North, Jon should get every northerner into Winterfell and prepare to defend it.  he already has walls there.  good walls.  and i think enought room/space to shelter most ofthe North.  winterfell is very large.  the individual Houses can each be given secitons to repair and upgrade and reside in.  then all of winterfell and its walls are adequately manned.  he does have the duty to defend the people of the North.  and he needs to do it in obvious ways, esp after Robb left the people to the mercy of the iron born.

 

the wall ... is too large to defend.  maybe with the armed forces of the entire 7 kingdoms and dragons it could be done.  but i doubt the North can muster up enough troops to do this. espeically now.  too many lightly or undefended points; if the wall itself cannot stop the Dead, the forces on the wall would be outflanked, cut off from help and from their families (now at the mercy of the Dead),  and able to be simply rolled up and destroyed.  remember -- the fortifications facing south are basically non-existent.

The humans also had thoussnds of children of the forest, giants and magic on their side. This time they have no giants, children of the forest and there are so many more others. 

 

How exactly are they going to stop the wights from enterering Winterfell ? If they cant stop them how will they defeat them ? If he tries to defend winterfell it will surely be surrounded. Which will mostly likely lead to the dead of evrey single Northener inside. 

 

The wall has lots of fire fortifications. Winterfell doesnt Maybe only the others can get past the wall just like at the other place until they bring it down so maybe they would just have to engage the others. 

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29 minutes ago, TheSmallOther said:

Well, let us think again. We already had one Long Night in which humans almost lost until Azor Ahai saved them. But it doesn't look like he've killed Night King and his White Walkers since they are still alive at the moment. I see two options here: either WWs have been forced to sleep for thousands of years or they retreated willingly behind the Wall.

willlingly?  forced to retreat...yep.  willilngly ... i doubt it.

 

wasnt the Wall built _after_ this victory?  the WW did not retreat behind the Wall.  they were forced back north and the Wall was then built to keep them there as long as possible.  sort of like a prison maybe

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He should definitely send men and fortify it's position.  

Higher than the walls at Winterfell surely.  

When it comes to Jon.  Obviously I'd prefer him at Winterfell, but, he may have to be there as well if that's where they intend to hold them unfortunately.  

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Just now, Cron said:

In my opinion, stuff like that would have been going on long before Jon ever even first arrived, and the NW would have been in shambles, if not completely disbanded. At the time Jon arrives in AGOT, what percent of the NW membership was VERY bad guys?  50?  Probably, if not more.  It is said over and over how they are murderers and rapists.  I think they would be deserting left and right, and probably would have wiped out all the good guys there a long time ago.  My goodness, they were taking murderers and rapists out of prison cells, giving them swords and letting them walk around free!!  Does that sound like a good idea?  It never sounded like a good idea to me.

 

To be honest they still need a place to desert criminals and disgraced knights. So I understand why the North and other realms still keep the NW as it has been for such a long time. And Lords of Winterfell as well as other lords still have the responsibility to execute and punish those who deserted NW. 

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37 minutes ago, Chib said:

You should look it in this account that after 8000 years, most of Westeros people don't believe in WW anymore. That's why they don't see NW as some kind of serious organization anymore.

yep.  intitially, the NW would have been composed of the best and bravest warriors in westeros. it wold have been a great honor and an ambition of almost any knigth to become assigned to or accepted by the NW.  but .... over time ... the  threat is forgotten...the focus and mission change (defend vs. wiildings instead of white walkers

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1 hour ago, Vastet said:

They can conceive it coming down. Or at the very least they can conceive it not being enough to hold back the Walkers. Way back in season 1, Samwell remarked he hoped it was high enough.

If you're commanding a defensive position that you expect can fail, you don't man that position with everything you have. You make a second position to fall back to. And maybe a third. In this case, they can't man the entire wall anyway, and doing so wouldn't necessarily be effective even if they could. So they need to have an army waiting to engage when the Wall fails.

Part of the problem is there probably isn't a second line of defense, at least for the North. You can't hide in castles and hold fasts. They dead would just kill the countryside. Growing their numbers and nearly wiping out humanity.

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How are you suppose to attack if you can't even defend against them ?



Simple. You run towards them with weapons drawn and start swinging.

If you attack them the only diffrence will be the rest watched from a far and let the dead do all the work in a defensive position,  while we attacked them, then they did a counter attack and almost no one was able to escape. The rest of us are being chased by wights that never get tired.



There's at least a dozen possible attack strategies. Some include traps, others diversions, some neither. Just because you're outnumbered doesn't mean you have no options and no chance.

Part of the problem is there probably isn't a second line of defense, at least for the North. You can't hide in castles and hold fasts. They dead would just kill the countryside. Growing their numbers and nearly wiping out humanity.



You can build trenches, dig pits, set traps, harass the infantry, and steadily retreat to the Neck (which is the most defendable position on the continent) as you chip away at the undead and the Walkers. More effective than standing on the Wall dropping rocks on the few corpses that get close enough before the Wall is breached and you get overrun.

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18 hours ago, Thror Baratheon said:

willlingly?  forced to retreat...yep.  willilngly ... i doubt it.

 

wasnt the Wall built _after_ this victory?  the WW did not retreat behind the Wall.  they were forced back north and the Wall was then built to keep them there as long as possible.  sort of like a prison maybe

Maybe the White Walkers built the wall to keep out the humans. Humanity broke the arrangement hence the renewed aggression.

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On June 29, 2016 at 6:45 PM, Elisabetta Duò said:

In theory he should send himself there, granted that he took advantage of a deus ex machina situation (resurrection) to break his vow. The NW is 'for life', because usually people have only one life. Had the people who wrote the vow known that one could resurrect, they would have put it in terms of 'forever'. D&D (and GRRM) needed him to be able to go away from the Wall, but this doesn't change that it was a poor stratagem.

The wights also serve ‘forever’, so perhaps death does not release the rangers after all.  At least, doesn’t release them from one service or another.

A big reason to get FakeJon away from the Wall is so that he isn’t buried under it when the Wall comes a-tumblin’ down. (Cue Jericho music)

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On 6/30/2016 at 2:01 AM, MilesJames said:

The humans also had thoussnds of children of the forest, giants and magic on their side. This time they have no giants, children of the forest and there are so many more others. 

 

How exactly are they going to stop the wights from enterering Winterfell ? If they cant stop them how will they defeat them ? If he tries to defend winterfell it will surely be surrounded. Which will mostly likely lead to the dead of evrey single Northener inside. 

 

The wall has lots of fire fortifications. Winterfell doesnt Maybe only the others can get past the wall just like at the other place until they bring it down so maybe they would just have to engage the others. 

well...the long and the short if it is that  they cannot stop the wights in either location.  nothing short of the dragons and/or something Sam or Bran come up with will do that.  unless ..... somehow the folks with dragonglass and/or the Valyrian steel swords (Jon, Brienne, Jamie, Sam, and hopefully Sandor [im hopin he gets one too :D]) can take out the Others.  3 are already down, out of 12 or 13 -- Meera, Jon, and Sam have KOed them; unless they have replenished their ranks w/o Craster, that would leave 9 or 10.  If the leadership of the Others gets KOed...then... the wights may be defeatable.  One of the humans (Jon?  Danny? Jamie?  Sandor?  Brienne?,,,Sam?) is Azor Ahai reborn.


But back to the point.

The strength of the Wall is the magic in its foundation.  Outside of that is its height.  Assuming the Walll wont collapse ( ;) ) its great disadvantage is its sheer size.  I mean its length.  In order to properly defend it, enough force has to be available to repsond to any threat or attack along its _entire_ length.  Promptly respond.  Otherwise, its just a speed bump.  The Wildlings scaled it all the time and did attack Castle Black from the _south_.   A direct assault on the Gate at Castle Black cannot be assumed.,  Any point along the Wall (Eastwatch, the Night Fort ?) is a viable point of attack.  I do not think that the North has enough forces to do this.

You mentioned Fire Fortifications?  what are these?  where are these?  I would think that the NW has left these deay and/or changed their use to something else.  The NW has not even thought about the Dead for thousands of years.  Any such structures would need more than a small bit of repair and refit.  I would also doubt that the NW has laid up the material to use these effectively.

 

Plus, to me, defending the Wall is the the classic 'static crustal defense of the frontier'.  I am not a fan of this strategy.  There are not many examples that I know of where it worked.

 

One other thing -- Winter is Here.  Winter has come.  The ability to move and deploy large bodies of troops in the North cannot be expected to be possible.  In other words, one cannot assume that any troops can even reach the Wall,

 

 

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On 6/30/2016 at 2:36 AM, Desert Fox said:

Part of the problem is there probably isn't a second line of defense, at least for the North. You can't hide in castles and hold fasts. They dead would just kill the countryside. Growing their numbers and nearly wiping out humanity.

Bingo.  By pulling everybody and everything into winterfell, you deprive the Dead of a source of new recruits, as it were.

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On 6/30/2016 at 2:04 AM, Chib said:

To be honest they still need a place to desert criminals and disgraced knights. So I understand why the North and other realms still keep the NW as it has been for such a long time. And Lords of Winterfell as well as other lords still have the responsibility to execute and punish those who deserted NW. 

I don't think that the North views the NW as a 'penal colony' necessarily.  Even currently.  But the rest of the 7 kindgoms do.

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Quibble point. :)

 

Wasn't Winterfell built (or fortified) at roughly the same time as the Wall and by the same human -- Brandon the Builder?  Could Winterfell _also_ have magic in its foundations similar to the Wall's?

[maybe....maybe not .... but ... I would think Brandon would setup Winterfell as The Great Redoubt and maybe a fallback position in case the Wall was breached]

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