Can & Should King Jon send Men to The Wall?

[helter skelter]

For me the best option is civilians south of moat, fighters to the wall.

[illinifan]

Jon taking his eye of the real war leads to the Final Battle.  He might tell himself that he took Winterfell to save humanity and became KitN to save humanity but he has entered the Great Game.  Jon has to rule the North and deal with the Wildlings and Northern tensions.  He has to deal with whatever LF is hatching.  He has to defend the North from Mad Queen Cersei and deal with Dany.  He has unresolved issues with his true parents.  All that means not fully preparing for the Final Battle.  

[dornishdragon]

Cersei may sit in the Iron Throne now but she doesn't have control over more than the Crownlands, the Westerlands, the Stormlands and maybe the Riverlands. That means Jon in effectively King in the North, he controls the region, so he should have the power to send men to the Wall.

[Arya Targaryen]

1 hour ago, Thror Baratheon said:

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]

That's my guess as well. Probably the magic is enabled by having a Stark in Winterfell - that's why the " There always must be a Stark in Winterfell".

Jon may suspect that, or Bran can tell him - I hope Brans mark, even if it nullifies the Wall's magic, won't do a thing to WF magic, because he is a Stark. idk.

But in-story Jon has no idea that the Wall must come down "for the plot". So he probably will send men to CB. But he will build a second line of defence in WF. Wasn't there any hints that it's what he is planning to do? I can't remember.

So yes, he should move every living into Winterfell. Including the few thousands Wildling women and children. Manderly can arrange some of his household to move onto the ships (not a good idea because of storms though).

[The Imp slap]

Bran, now the 3ER, will soon connect with Jon. I don't think his mark will help take the wall down (way too cheap!). I believe Bran will tell Jon about the magic of WF (similar to that of the wall) that works as long as there is a Stark there.

[AvengerofWinterfell]

In theory it would seem like a good idea to send the remaining Bolton, Umber, and Karstark forces to the wall but 1) I think Jon intends to use those forces to fight the Walkers anyway so no reason to make them take the black & 2) there is no way they could make the stay.  The NW doesnt have enough men to make those men stay there and Jon's going to be too busy to go out and round them all up.

[Back in Black-Snow]

On 07/02/2016 at 1:05 PM, Thror Baratheon said:

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 ]) 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,

 

 

I'm not so sure that is the case. There are certain parts of Westeros where troops would be hard to move in or out (ie. the Vale), but I think it is a stretch to say that no armies are movable due to Winter. I think the opposite of you: one cannot assume it is impossible to move troops, except for the Vale and maybe a few other places. Dangerous and difficult, yes; but impossible, no.

[Lord Lannister]

There's no reason for Jon to suspect that the Wall may fall. So taking actions or not taking actions on that assumption isn't logical from the character's standpoint.

Making the Bolton, Karstark and Umber survivors take the Black is a good idea. Though it carries with it a risk of creating the Watch's next Alliser Thorne, it gets rid of your potential enemies and reinforces the Night's Watch in a single stroke.

Next, the Dreadfort, Karhold and Last Hearth all need new lords. As much as Sansa doesn't like it, she is Lady Bolton now and by rights the Dreadfort is hers. It's possible some distant Karstark relative is still alive and kicking, an Alys or someone. The Last Hearth would be an appropriate reward for the Wildlings.

The Ironborn are still a threat so Deepwood Motte and the other settlements on the west coast still need to be defended. Further, the North is still at war with the Iron Throne technically, so Moat Cailin needs a garrison. Beyond that the North is short on man power and war torn. The remaining men really need to get back to their homes to prepare for winter and frankly the wars to come.

Jon can send Sam a raven asking for him to dig for some specific knowledge, but right now frankly the next move belongs to the Night's King.

[Panther2000]

On ‎6‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 8:45 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.

I do believe that he will return to The Wall along with a massive army.  Yeah, he found a loophole that no one every thought of.  But, he can't gather his army sitting at the wall sending letters.  We all know how that turned out.  LOL

[Runaway Penguin]

Jon knows there was a magical device that was supposed to make the Wall fall - the horn. So he will not be so sure someone else won't figure out the trick. He might well prepare second line of defence in the Winterfell. 

 

Realistically speaking, Wall does not need that big a garrison - I mean big compared to the current NW, but not even the 10k it had of old. But Wall needs logistics, especially in the winter.

I guess that what happens is Jon leading the host to castle Black, finding Dolorous Edd standing on the pile of ice rubble and saying "I told you so!"

 

[Flavia Gemina]

Perhaps the ww can by pass the wall in a similar fashion to bypassing the magic at bloodraven's cave after touching Bran.

[sharding85]

I like the thought of Winterfell being a second line of defence. Whatever happens Bran has a huge part to play in this. I still believe that he is the original Bran the builder and is more powerful than any of us can imagine. 

I also think that we will see a memory from history where Bran meets the old king of the North and tells him to bow the knee to ATC in order to keep a stark in Winterfell.

It promises to be an amazing season; i just hope after season 8 we are left disappointed.

[Slaysman]

I think Jon should send reinforcements to the Wall with the suggestion (he is no longer their LC) that all active garrisons seal their tunnels. The wall is what..700 feet high and a quarter mile thick or something like that? Even were the Wall not magical that is a damn near impossible obstacle to over come. The weak points of the Wall are the Gorge (where the Shadow Tower is) and Eastwatch.

Even if the Wall is destroyed you will need to take in to account gravity. It will be a very impressive pile of defensible rubble. That and should the Wall come tumbling down I would think it would make a very large noise heard throughout the North.