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Where are the Others?


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@Cron Why people are so intent on misusing the word plot hole will forever be beyond me. Look up what it means. Anyway, it's simple WWs are stationed in the Lands of Always Winter, they have been amassing an army, they cannot launch an invasion on Westeros yet because d'oh The Wall stands in the way. It was erected for a reason, it is magical for a reason. They might have been looking for a way to break the spell, maybe 3ER needed to die first for them to do something about The Wall, so they have been looking for him too. The remaining Wildlings from Mance's army are likely wights at this point, some might be in hiding.      

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21 hours ago, Evarei said:

@Cron Why people are so intent on misusing the word plot hole will forever be beyond me. Look up what it means. Anyway, it's simple WWs are stationed in the Lands of Always Winter, they have been amassing an army, they cannot launch an invasion on Westeros yet because d'oh The Wall stands in the way. It was erected for a reason, it is magical for a reason. They might have been looking for a way to break the spell, maybe 3ER needed to die first for them to do something about The Wall, so they have been looking for him too. The remaining Wildlings from Mance's army are likely wights at this point, some might be in hiding.      

To me, a plot hole is something that doesn't make sense, and can't really be explained in a reasonable way without getting into serious speculation.  Usually, if I say "plot hole," it's gonna be a pretty major issue, and I think this is.  (I'm curious: What does "plot hole" mean to you?)

Your comments are interesting, but I asked above about (a) the specifics of the rules regarding the WW Crew's abililty or inability to pass the Wall, and (b) our source for that information.  I did not see either in your post.

I raised the issue (up above) about the wights in Castle Black itself that Jon crossed off in Season One.  Castle Black is not IN the Wall, it's on the south side of the Wall, as I strongly understand it.  That fact alone raises serious questions in my mind about the "rules," and whether the actions of certain characters (including the Night King) make sense.

And what about simply going AROUND the Wall????  I have no idea why the WW Crew doesn't simply go down to Eastwatch in huge numbers and go around the Wall.  Do we have some reason to believe they can't go in or on water (either with a boat or without)?  What about when winter has really arrived in earnest, and the water is frozen ice?  Can't they just walk around the end of the Wall then?  If they have some problem with water, that doesn't really make sense, snow IS water, and it's pretty much everywhere up north.  Can't they go on boats?  They have OVERWHELMING force compared to the Night's Watch at Eastwatch.

Look, I love GOT/ASOIAF, but I believe these are major issues that, as far as I know, have never been addressed in the books or show, to my knowledge.  I think George Martin is fantastic (a creative genius, in fact), but I've got a feeling that (a) this stuff will never be explained, and (b) even if it IS explained, George will be pretty much making it up as he goes along.

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7 hours ago, Cron said:

something that doesn't make sense, and can't really be explained in a reasonable way without getting into serious speculation.

The functioning of pretty much any magic falls into this definition.

 

If we don´t know the basic rules of whatever magic is in the wall, we can´t possibly say there´s a hole in the plot, because we don´t know what the plot is. 

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6 hours ago, NutBurz said:

The functioning of pretty much any magic falls into this definition.

 

If we don´t know the basic rules of whatever magic is in the wall, we can´t possibly say there´s a hole in the plot, because we don´t know what the plot is. 

Well, regarding your first paragraph, in my opinion it's not a plot hole if it can be rationally explained within the context and rules of the current story.  If I'm watching a Superman movie, and bullets bounce off of him, it's not a plot hole, cuz I understand Superman is nigh invulnerable.

Regarding your second paragraph...that's a little trickier.  Sure, I can theorize and speculate explanations as to why the WW Crew doesn't just build boats and sail around the Wall in the Narrow Sea (or Shivering Sea, or whatever), but if there's a major issue that hasn't been addressed or explained in almost FIVE THOUSAND pages of books, and almost SIXTY hours of show, and I have to start making up theories to "explain" it, I'm comfortable calling it a plot hole.  The notions that the WW Crew might be able to go AROUND the Wall is obvious, as is the notion that the wildlings could EASILY tunnel through it or under it, or even EASILY go over it en masse when HUNDREDS of miles of it are undefended are obvious.

Incidentally, I already addressed, above, the possibiltiy that GRRM might just start "explaining" this stuff by making "explanations" up on the fly, but that's not really satisfactory, especially after almost 5,000 pages and almost 60 hours of show.

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2 hours ago, Cron said:

Incidentally, I already addressed, above, the possibiltiy that GRRM might just start "explaining" this stuff by making "explanations" up on the fly, but that's not really satisfactory, especially after almost 5,000 pages and almost 60 hours of show.

It doesn´t have to be on the fly, he´s not supposed to tell us everything all the time down to the minimum details, this is a romance and a drama, it´s not a documentary. They can withhold information for dramatic purpose.

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6 hours ago, NutBurz said:

It doesn´t have to be on the fly, he´s not supposed to tell us everything all the time down to the minimum details, this is a romance and a drama, it´s not a documentary. They can withhold information for dramatic purpose.

Well, I hear you, and don't get me wrong, I'm not hung up on stuff like this.

I believe the ASOIAF books are some of the absolute best books I've ever read (and I've read hundreds and hundreds, at least, don't even know how many), and GRRM is a creative genius.  His greatest strength is characters, though, and sometimes I'm not really sure how much he thought about some of this other stuff.

We can speculate about the Others and whether there's some unstated magical reason why they can't do SIMPLE and OBVIOUS things to get into the south (like just going around the Wall near Eastwatch), but what about the wildings?  I'll tell you this, Jon Snow and the Night's Watch are lucky I'm not Mance Rayder with 100,000 wildings, plus giants and mammoths, cuz I guarantee if I was Castle Black would have fallen and we would have been pouring into the south.

To THIS DAY I don't even understand where Stannis got all those men when he arrived to save the day as it was.  The Golden Company?  I guess there's some men, okay, but my goodness, now many fighting men did they have??? Stannis' own forces just got WIPED OUT at the Battle of Blackwater Bay.  And suddenly he's got a force capable of wiping out 100,000 wildlings with giants and mammoths???  And those wildlings are tough, hardened fighters, used to living in harsh conditions, dressed for the cold weather.

I dunno, I dunno...

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Straying off the topic of Others, but 100,000 wildlings was the entire "army" - men, women, children, cripples... With a lot of men - the first line fighters, the fiercest and probably most experienced - being killed in assault on the Wall... Or in skirmishes with Others implied earlier (they were after all major reason for the whole Wildling movement). Without cavalry, without armor, without any sort of military doctrine. Heavy armored cavalry would go through them like a hot knife through butter, so would armored infantry. Throw few pike squares, moderately trained pike squares (which seem to be common on the South), against a mass of rabble and the only thing that would stop them would be piles of bodies. Stannis did not really need THAT much force against them and implication is he still had sizeable strength after Blackwater (though no navy). 

Add to that a total surprise and presumably Ranger guides, capable of getting the army through fast and effectively... 

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Mance also tells Jon with every word that his intention was never to wage war against the entire south, only to subjulgate the Night´s Watch to force a truce so he could save his people. If he simply poured over the Wall, the northern lords would quickly do what Stannis did.

Someone might have more precise information, but my guess is that Stannis had about 6k horses, charging into their morning camp (which means that much more since they´re drunk wildlings, and not a professional army). Most wildlings must have simply fled, not died. Thus Hardhome.

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On July 26, 2016 at 10:09 AM, Aegonzo The Great said:

You're not alone. I still want to know what they want and why they are attacking now.

One thing I will say, when we saw the NK change the baby in Oathkeeper in season 5, there seemed to be only 12 "Generals", for lack of a better word, around the NK. We are supposed to find these ones special because they dress all in black, as opposed to the WW "Grunts" who seem to wear tattered clothing.

Since then, we've seen 2 of the Generals get killed, 1 by Jon at Hardhome and 1 by Meera in the cave. I wonder if those 12 were all there were, and what happened to the "Grunts"? It seems we haven't seen them at all since about Season 4, it's been only the Generals since then.

I personally assumed that the show just changed their image, maybe your right but if so why send a general in to get killed when you have grunts?

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9 hours ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I personally assumed that the show just changed their image, maybe your right but if so why send a general in to get killed when you have grunts?

I thought about this too, the only thing I keep coming back to is in Oathkeeper, they show the "grunt" taking the baby to the ice altar, and in the background you can see a group of Others all wearing black like the "generals", so that scene seemed to be there to clearly establish a hierarchy amongst the Others. I don't know if D&D just forgot about it or what.

Or maybe you're right and D&D will explain it by saying "Yeah, we just thought they didn't look cool enough (har!), so we decided to upgrade their wardrobe."

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14 hours ago, Runaway Penguin said:

Straying off the topic of Others, but 100,000 wildlings was the entire "army" - men, women, children, cripples... With a lot of men - the first line fighters, the fiercest and probably most experienced - being killed in assault on the Wall... Or in skirmishes with Others implied earlier (they were after all major reason for the whole Wildling movement). Without cavalry, without armor, without any sort of military doctrine. Heavy armored cavalry would go through them like a hot knife through butter, so would armored infantry. Throw few pike squares, moderately trained pike squares (which seem to be common on the South), against a mass of rabble and the only thing that would stop them would be piles of bodies. Stannis did not really need THAT much force against them and implication is he still had sizeable strength after Blackwater (though no navy). 

Add to that a total surprise and presumably Ranger guides, capable of getting the army through fast and effectively... 

Great food for thought, here's some response (not all disagreeing with you, either, just making conversation)

(1)  It's true that the 100,000 number is not all fighting men, but the people of the north seem pretty fit and hardy. Indeed, the women are fierce fighters, too.  You mention they have no cavalry. Fair point, but they DID have giants and mammotns.  How many? Don't know.

(2) The force the wildlings sent to attack the Wall was a very small probing force (this was specifically said in the show).  Why Mance did this is beyond me. Even according to Jon, they only had 1,000 men (which was of course a lie by a factor of ten).  Indeed, I've JUST re-watched Season 4, and in 401 Mance tells Jon flat out he knows the NW is down to about 50 men.  Why didn't he press the advantage when his probing force not only showed the NW to be WAY fewer men than Jon had claimed, but ALSO wiped out about half of them?  I have no idea. Clearly if Mance had pressed the advantage, he would have owned Castle Black before morning.

(3) Back to the Stannis issue:  I think you do make a strong point about the cavalry, but I guess the real problem is that we just don't know how many Golden Company men there were (although, in fairness to your point, those guys are certainly all hardened, experienced warriors)

(4)  Nevertheless, my understanding is that Stannis' own troops were annihilated at Blackwater.  They had devastating losses, in the water and on the land.  If 10% of Stannis' forces survived I'd be surprised, and even then I think it would only be b/c they ran away (in fact, no only I am I unaware of any retreat being ordered, but I don't even know HOW they would have retreated.  They came in by boats, and the vast majority of them, nearly all I believe, were burned and sunk).

(5)  In any event, one of my main points on this subject is that Mance was a fool to attack at Castle Black in the first place.  WHY did he do that???  The Wall has HUNDREDS of undefended miles!!  WHY did he attack at one of the VERY few places that is at least half decently manned and defended???  I have no idea.  There are NINETEEN forts, only three are manned, so Mance decides to attack one of those three, AND picks the most heavily defended one to boot???  What???   Sam and Gilly EASILY found their wayinside one of them (Night Fort?), and even if Mance couldn't find a secret passage, he could have had men scale the walls, get inside, open it up from the inside, and/or just use his ENORMOUS labor force (including GIANTS and MAMMOTHS!!) to open up the tunnels (tear out the gates, tunnel in and/or through the wall or whatever)

Bottom line:  Mance Rayder was an idiot, in my opinion.  Given his overwhelming force and the outrageously deteriorated condition of the Night's Watch (with its manpower down dramatically, and 16 forts unguarded ENTIRELY) it is outrageous that Mance failed to successfully invade the south long before Stannis and his men even arrived.

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There are no plot holes. It would be a plot hole if the whole WW army marched on the wall without a way past. And incredibly stupid strategy to boot. The WW now control everything North of the Wall, through fear. Not even ranging parties are going North and any wildlings still alive up there are allied with the WW as Crastor was. If they camped out at the foot of the wall it would provide a pretty easy target to whittle away.

The dead who attacked Mormont were carried through the wall. The only reason you were permitted to say this has a plot hole without 2000 people jumping down your throat is because we're between seasons and barely anyone is looking at the forum right now. The hows and whys were literally settled years ago. Dead turned into undead, Watch carries them past the wall (something they are incapable of doing on their own), undead attack. It couldn't be more simple, and there is absolutely no plot hole.

1) Far as we know all giants and mammoths are dead. Also, when you get refugees from a war, the majority are not capable of fighting. Those capable of fighting, fight. Thus they are less likely to get out alive. Most of the wildlings who got past the wall are children, old people, sick, and wounded. The fighters are dead, and part of the undead army now.

2) Mance did press the advantage. He sent hundreds of people over the Wall to attack from the South. Stannis got there first.

3) We know there was enough to consider an attack on Winterfell credible, which means Stannis had a LOT of soldiers. Thousands and thousands. He also had surprise, strategy, positioning, and cavalry. There was absolutely nothing about the sequence of events that made no sense.

4) So you missed the episode where Stannis gained the support of the Iron Bank and bought tonnes of sell swords. Got it.

5) Mance wasn't going to get women and children to climb. He needed a gate. There are only 3 gates available to him (Sam only knew about the 4th because he's a book worm: Mance isn't), and Castle Black is the least defended, as there are no natural barriers to assist defence like there is at Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower.

Bottom line, your opinion is clearly too uneducated to be of any value.

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13 hours ago, Cron said:

Great food for thought, here's some response (not all disagreeing with you, either, just making conversation)

(1)  It's true that the 100,000 number is not all fighting men, but the people of the north seem pretty fit and hardy. Indeed, the women are fierce fighters, too.  You mention they have no cavalry. Fair point, but they DID have giants and mammotns.  How many? Don't know.

(2) The force the wildlings sent to attack the Wall was a very small probing force (this was specifically said in the show).  Why Mance did this is beyond me. Even according to Jon, they only had 1,000 men (which was of course a lie by a factor of ten).  Indeed, I've JUST re-watched Season 4, and in 401 Mance tells Jon flat out he knows the NW is down to about 50 men.  Why didn't he press the advantage when his probing force not only showed the NW to be WAY fewer men than Jon had claimed, but ALSO wiped out about half of them?  I have no idea. Clearly if Mance had pressed the advantage, he would have owned Castle Black before morning.

(3) Back to the Stannis issue:  I think you do make a strong point about the cavalry, but I guess the real problem is that we just don't know how many Golden Company men there were (although, in fairness to your point, those guys are certainly all hardened, experienced warriors)

(4)  Nevertheless, my understanding is that Stannis' own troops were annihilated at Blackwater.  They had devastating losses, in the water and on the land.  If 10% of Stannis' forces survived I'd be surprised, and even then I think it would only be b/c they ran away (in fact, no only I am I unaware of any retreat being ordered, but I don't even know HOW they would have retreated.  They came in by boats, and the vast majority of them, nearly all I believe, were burned and sunk).

(5)  In any event, one of my main points on this subject is that Mance was a fool to attack at Castle Black in the first place.  WHY did he do that???  The Wall has HUNDREDS of undefended miles!!  WHY did he attack at one of the VERY few places that is at least half decently manned and defended???  I have no idea.  There are NINETEEN forts, only three are manned, so Mance decides to attack one of those three, AND picks the most heavily defended one to boot???  What???   Sam and Gilly EASILY found their wayinside one of them (Night Fort?), and even if Mance couldn't find a secret passage, he could have had men scale the walls, get inside, open it up from the inside, and/or just use his ENORMOUS labor force (including GIANTS and MAMMOTHS!!) to open up the tunnels (tear out the gates, tunnel in and/or through the wall or whatever)

Bottom line:  Mance Rayder was an idiot, in my opinion.  Given his overwhelming force and the outrageously deteriorated condition of the Night's Watch (with its manpower down dramatically, and 16 forts unguarded ENTIRELY) it is outrageous that Mance failed to successfully invade the south long before Stannis and his men even arrived.

It's a good thing you weren't leading the Wildlings forces, as you would have all but guaranteed their complete extinction. Your making a lot of assumptions here, the first of which the wall might only be reasonably scalable from a few distinct spots. The second of which is it still takes a certain amount of ropes, spikes, and not to mention skill, to scale a wall that high. Loss's would be high, even without an army firing down on them.

But, for the sake of argument, lets have it your way. Mance's forces attack in masse, overtake the NW, and soundly defeat them. They open up the gates and allow there women, children, and elderly to come through. What's next?

I will tell you what happens next, all the houses of the North unite and strike a massive counterattack. The wildlings are completely wiped out, right down to the last child.

Brilliant!

Unlike the WW, the wildlings are not the stuff of folklore and legend. Everyone in the North knows they exist, and hate them. It might have made for an interesting twist in the story line, but, it was not a good plan for a leader who's sole purpose was to get safety for his people.

For that reason, Mance need to attack where the NW was, not where they weren't. He needed to intimidate, overwhelm, yet not destroy them in order to broker a reasonable truce and secure safety of his people.

Mance -1

Cron - 0

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On 28 July 2016 at 6:12 AM, Cron said:

War is often about controlling territory.

By massing at or near the Wall, the WW Crew would effectively control the territory just on the other side of the Wall, and prevent the Night's Watch from doing the things they like and need to do north of the Wall (hunting, ranging, scouting, et cetera).

Your point about the wights having been carried past the wall as dead men may be critical, I just don't know.  The "rules" about this stuff ar not at all clear to me, and I believe I've yet to see anyone in this Forum precisely describe those rules and cite the source of the information (I've read all the books twice and watched every episode multiple times.  I seem to recall some very vague references to the issue, but no detailed specifics).  So you certainly might be right.

But even if that's so, I could think of ways they could make use of the "loophole" of being carried through the Wall, rather than walking.

But we just don't have a complete rule book for the Wall and its magic. Indeed, I've OFTEN wondered why the wildings and WW Crew don't just tunnel through it or under it.  The Wall is NOT invulnerable to harm.  My goodness, it is said to "weep" or melt in the snow, and there are HUNDREDS OF MILES of it that are totally undefended.  Why ON EARTH did Mance Rayder choose to attack at one of the VERY few places that were defended????  I've never understood that.  Mance had 100,000 people!!!  Hey, I've got an idea, get 5,000 robust wilding men with pick axes and shovels, and just tunnel through or under!!!    The vast majority of the Wall is just ice and snow, as I understand it.  Holy cow, Mance had GIANTS and MAMMOTHS!!

(Indeed, the more I think about it, the more ludicrous Mance's attack plan becomes in my mind.  My goodness, just fashion 10 rope ladders 700' long, which is not a big deal when you have such an enormous labor force, then have a group of guys climb the Wall, fastening the rope ladders to the Wall and each other at regular intervals with pitons and the like.  Once they get to the top, you would have able bodied men and women scrambling up the Wall by the dozens within minutes.  Within a couple hours, you could have HUNDREDS of wildlings on the Wall and on the other side, then thousands and thousands.  Post men to guard the top of the Wall from Night's Watch coming from both directions.  Do it near one of the 16 unguarded forts, take the fort, use wildings, giants and mammoths to open the tunnels, and within 5 or 10 hours wildlings would be pouring through by the thousands.  I could go on and on.)

But maybe someone here can precisely explain the rules that (presumably) prevent such things, and what the source of that information is.  Frankly, I doubt there is any rule which would prevent the wildings from doing what I said.  It is KNOWN (specifically stated) that Mance attacked Castle Black with a VERY small percentage of his force.  If he had pressed the attack when they made the original assault, he WOULD have easily won (i know, I know, Mance THOUGHT there were 1,000 Night's Watch, cuz that's what Jon told him, but even that number is nothing compared to the size of Mance's force, and of course he would have soon realized Jon had lied, and the real number was barely 1/10th of that)

Nice analysis about Mance's plan, indeed why wouldn't he attack another unguarded fort and create a stronghold to march upon Shadow Tower first in the West (Mance could clear his rear) and then make a surprise attack on Castle Black to the East. If Mance had 100,000, then a minimum of 20,000 would have been strong to sweep everything eastwards and westwards (even at the same time). Very good analysis indeed Cron! 

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It's a good thing you weren't leading the Wildlings forces, as you would have all but guaranteed their complete extinction. Your making a lot of assumptions here, the first of which the wall might only be reasonably scalable from a few distinct spots. The second of which is it still takes a certain amount of ropes, spikes, and not to mention skill, to scale a wall that high. Loss's would be high, even without an army firing down on them.



But, for the sake of argument, lets have it your way. Mance's forces attack in masse, overtake the NW, and soundly defeat them. They open up the gates and allow there women, children, and elderly to come through. What's next?

I will tell you what happens next, all the houses of the North unite and strike a massive counterattack. The wildlings are completely wiped out, right down to the last child.

Brilliant!

Unlike the WW, the wildlings are not the stuff of folklore and legend. Everyone in the North knows they exist, and hate them. It might have made for an interesting twist in the story line, but, it was not a good plan for a leader who's sole purpose was to get safety for his people.

For that reason, Mance need to attack where the NW was, not where they weren't. He needed to intimidate, overwhelm, yet not destroy them in order to broker a reasonable truce and secure safety of his people.

Mance -1

Cron - 0



Well said.

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3 hours ago, The Dew said:

Nice analysis about Mance's plan, indeed why wouldn't he attack another unguarded fort and create a stronghold to march upon Shadow Tower first in the West (Mance could clear his rear) and then make a surprise attack on Castle Black to the East. If Mance had 100,000, then a minimum of 20,000 would have been strong to sweep everything eastwards and westwards (even at the same time). Very good analysis indeed Cron! 

Thanks.

I've read the comments here by Vaster and Ice Spider.  I respect their views, but I do not agree with them.  I could respond to them point by point, but it seems clear to me that we are operating from different premises, such that we are simply not going to agree on these things, which is fine, of course.

Among other issues, though, it will never make sense to me that Mance did not climb and/or attack and/or tunnel and/or invade at one of the unoccupied forts, establish a stronghold, and then defend the territory he had won from there.

If I have a choice between attacking or defending a fort, or castle, or wall, or whatever, I'm gonna go with "defend" every time.

In this thread, I have set forth a number of strategies to which, I believe, I've heard no response whatsoever.  The Wall is NOT invulnerable (I strongly presume it can be tunnelled through and/or under by humans), it melts in the sun ("weep'ing Wall")

And they don't even have to do tunnel.  Send guys to climb over, set up systems to raise others up (such as, but not limited to, what the NW itself uses at Castle Black, like elevators) and soon you'll have hundreds, if not thousands, of wildlings crossing per hour.  Use your MASSIVE labor force (both in terms of numbers and raw physical power, e.g., giants and mammoths) to clear out the blocked tunnel.  Occupy a fort, and assume a defensive posture.  

No one will ever convince me that what Mance actually attempted makes more sense than what I just described.

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6 hours ago, Cron said:

Thanks.

I've read the comments here by Vaster and Ice Spider.  I respect their views, but I do not agree with them.  I could respond to them point by point, but it seems clear to me that we are operating from different premises, such that we are simply not going to agree on these things, which is fine, of course.

Among other issues, though, it will never make sense to me that Mance did not climb and/or attack and/or tunnel and/or invade at one of the unoccupied forts, establish a stronghold, and then defend the territory he had won from there.

If I have a choice between attacking or defending a fort, or castle, or wall, or whatever, I'm gonna go with "defend" every time.

In this thread, I have set forth a number of strategies to which, I believe, I've heard no response whatsoever.  The Wall is NOT invulnerable (I strongly presume it can be tunnelled through and/or under by humans), it melts in the sun ("weep'ing Wall")

And they don't even have to do tunnel.  Send guys to climb over, set up systems to raise others up (such as, but not limited to, what the NW itself uses at Castle Black, like elevators) and soon you'll have hundreds, if not thousands, of wildlings crossing per hour.  Use your MASSIVE labor force (both in terms of numbers and raw physical power, e.g., giants and mammoths) to clear out the blocked tunnel.  Occupy a fort, and assume a defensive posture.  

No one will ever convince me that what Mance actually attempted makes more sense than what I just described.

Going against the wall at nearly full force was madness (taking into account the resistance that NW would show), and not so well prepared by Mance. Making a surprise attack at Castle Black was not the best strategy, I agree that he could have laboured more in terms of opening tunnels and climbing unguarded parts of the wall concurrently. It was purely a suicide mission on Mance's part. If he had opened the sealed tunnels then he could have fortified his position behind the wall and on the wall. With 100,000 people one could do a lot. If Bran the Builder built the wall with the assistance of Giants, then Mance Raider could have taken it down (not all of it - only one unguarded tunnel) with the assistance of the Giants. The strategy he applied does not make sense. In addition the Realm South of the Wall was and is in a warring state, who would trust who and march against the wall, since armies were scattered and alliances broken up? No one in my view. Your analysis and assumptions regarding Mance's strategies find me in agreement, as it simply does not make any sense. The only thing that was demonstrated to us was that Mance was a good diplomat and a very lousy strategist.

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A few points regarding Mance´s strategy:

-He doesn´t know what is happening in the South(of the wall), he has bits and pieces of information, so much so that Stannis lands his army without them expecting it.

-I´m sorry if I misunderstood, but it seems you´re saying he should have spread all his forces along the unprotected areas of the Wall and then attacked from the South?

From his point of view, that´s a bad idea. They´re not good at coordinating, he can´t be everywhere at the same time, he can´t be sure there´s not a Southern army at every gate waiting for him to attack with a stretched-thin force so that they can outmanuever and flank him from his side of the wall, he can´t be sure they won´t have sealed the tunnels with Ice like Jon suggested, he can´t force all his army to climb the wall for 8 hours and fight effectively the next second.

Of course he could suppose he would be successful in many spots of the wall, but then there would be large amounts of Wildlings prancing about the north, in need to feed and rest. Even his small party failed to go undetected, a large invasion would surely cause the Northern lords to march north - and then, if there´s resistance at any spot of the wall, he will only have managed to impose two fronts of battle to his army on the south side of the Wall.

Always keeping in mind that, when it comes to Wildlings, "army" is a kindness.

I´m not saying he wouldn´t succeed, maybe he would, but he wouldn´t make this decision - mainly because he did not have an army of 100k soldiers, he was just the only thing holding ten warring tribes of 10k people together.

Even if he attacked in strenght but on a different point of the wall, all he would be doing would be triggering the Northern Lords which was the one thing he needed to avoid. He needed the Night´s Watch submission.

 

He was terribly wrong about one thing - that the Night´s Watch´s word would be worth anything to the Realm.

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What you need to remember as well is that any wilding force climbing the wall will suffer heavy casualties. Mance was probing there defences and gaging there strength before sending a force he believed was large enough to defeat them. If Mance say sends 5,000 warriors to climb the wall he's going to suffer hundreds of casualties needlessly. You could add that as well as testing there defences Mance was also hoping there might be a chance to break though very quickly with a minimum of deaths by using the giants and mamoths which wouldn't have been helped much by having more men around them anyway.

As far as the Others/WW go I think its clear that they've been mounting small attacks to build up their army for some time. At the point they attacked at the fist of the first men for example they might not have had a force large enough to take on Mance's entire army where as by Hardholm they did, maybe after picking off parts of Mance's force that splintered elsewhere after the defeat by Stannis?

The logic of what they do now is impossible for us to know as theres so much we don't know about the nature of the magic around them, the Wall and winter generally.

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On 7/27/2016 at 4:53 PM, Cron said:

Yeah, I really don't fully understand it.

We've been told somthing about them not being able to pass the Wall, yet they WERE inside Caslte Black, which isn't even IN hte Wall, it's on the southern side of it.

The magic of the wall keeps out the White Walkers.  Wights are not White Walkers.  

Plus the bodies were brought through the wall by the Night's Watch, then became re-animated. If I recall correctly.

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