I think I found a loophole

[fire&blood]

Am I missing something here? 

So the only ways south of the wall is either by climbing it like Ygritte and Jon did, or by boats sailing down from the Bay of Seals. Well, we know the whitewalkers can't pass through the wall because of the old magic in it, but what about using the bay? It seems like they bring the cold and can freeze everything around them, perhaps water to ice...why can't they just do that and say fuck the wall? Maybe I found a loophole

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

It's a cool thought but cotter Pyke did say "dead things in the water" as if they were partially or fully submerged is how I took it  he could have said dead things walking on water 

[Clegane'sPup]

I like loop holes. I have mentioned this before. Now that the weather is getting colder and stuff is freezing why couldn’t the Other’s and their minions walk across the frozen river near the Shadow Tower. The slap down is the Wall is warded with magical spells.

[The Hammer of Justice]

I think that's because the Wall is not just a physical barrier, it is also a magical barrier, and its magic blocks WW from passing to the south, even though there is a "physical" path around it

[Lord Lannister]

Isn't the wall said to extend several miles into the Bay of Seals? Certainly Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with it's galleys seems to be designed to counter circumvention of the Wall through the sea.

[Curled Finger]

What timing.   I am the gleeful recipient of the Lands of Ice and Fire just today.   One of the things I took an enlarged picture of for my benefactor was the Bridge of Skulls.  Still, I think there is something to The Others being prevented from using the obvious alternate routes around The Wall.   I've read in a couple of places (here on the forum) that The Others may not be able to travel by water or go in water.  The show makers even seemed to confirm that idea in episode 8 season 5.   Whatever the reason ASOIAF may be the most scrutinized writing of our time.   Surely GRRM is keenly aware of these alternate routes but stubbornly writes The Others into having to bring The Wall down.   It is gorgeous symbolism if nothing else.   

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

The Others can't cross the wall, but the Wights seem to be able to (they're the "dead things in the water" not the Others). We don't know whether Others can "go around" the Wall, or simply cannot go south of it while it stands. The latter seems likely. 

[Adam Yozza]

I'd say it was part of the Wall's magic, like it's not just a physical barrier but also a magical one. Maybe the Others can't cross south of the Wall's latitude (or longitude, I'm not good at geography)  

[devilish]

I won't be surprised if the zombies are walking under water. 

[John Doe]

Can they walk though? Wouldn't they float? Which is, in my opinion, even creepier, but still. 

[Clegane'sPup]

On 12/15/2016 at 6:46 PM, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

It's a cool thought but cotter Pyke did say "dead things in the water" as if they were partially or fully submerged is how I took it  he could have said dead things walking on water 

I’m glad you brought this up.  I had forgotten about all about Hardhome. People don’t seem to about Hardhome lately.

Jon had received a message from Cotter Pyke

DwD c.58 (Jon) At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune. Cotter Pyke had made his angry mark below.

The tale of Hardhome is tossed about

DwD c. 39 (Jon)  You know the tale." He did. Hardhome had been halfway toward becoming a town, the only true town north of the Wall, until the night six hundred years ago when hell had swallowed it. Its people had been carried off into slavery or slaughtered for meat, depending on which version of the tale you believed, their homes and halls consumed in a conflagration that burned so hot that watchers on the Wall far to the south had thought the sun was rising in the north. Afterward ashes rained down on haunted forest and Shivering Sea alike for almost half a year. Traders reported finding only nightmarish devastation where Hardhome had stood, a landscape of charred trees and burned bones, waters choked with swollen corpses, blood-chilling shrieks echoing from the cave mouths that pocked the great cliff that loomed above the settlement.

 

Six centuries had come and gone since that night, but Hardhome was still shunned. The wild had reclaimed the site, Jon had been told, but rangers claimed that the overgrown ruins were haunted by ghouls and demons and burning ghosts with an unhealthy taste for blood. "It is not the sort of refuge I'd chose either," Jon said, "but Mother Mole was heard to preach that the free folk would find salvation where once they found damnation."

Hardhome seems to be in my muddled mind another mystery or cliffhanger. At the gathering when Jon reveals the contents of the pink/bastard letter he says Tormund is gonna lead a ranging there.

Jump back to when LC Snow approached the free folk in Mole’sTown  DwD c. 21 (Jon) "You crows eat good enough." Halleck shoved forward. For now. "We hold the Wall. The Wall protects the realm … and you now. You know the foe we face. You know what's coming down on us. Some of you have faced them before. Wights and white walkers, dead things with blue eyes and black hands. I've seen them too, fought them, sent one to hell. They kill, then they send your dead against you. The giants were not able to stand against them, nor you Thenns, the ice-river clans, the Hornfoots, the free folk … and as the days grow shorter and the nights colder, they are growing stronger. You left your homes and came south in your hundreds and your thousands … why, but to escape them? To be safe. Well, it's the Wall that keeps you safe. It's us that keeps you safe, the black crows you despise."

Just struck me as interesting that a woods witch named Mother Mole led a group of free folk to Hardhome and that group now needs rescuing. If dragonglass melted the Other Sam fought, the Other known affectionately as Mr. Puddles, I’m wondering if perhaps there may possibly be some dragonglass/frozen fire/ obsidian to be found in dem dar hills of Hardhome.

As to the opening post, I can’t dismiss the possibility that the Others could circumvent the magically warded Wall by walking across the snow and ice that accumulate near the outer reaches of the Shadow Tower. Tin folly perhaps but hey there might be another couple of years before WoW is released. AND baby, it’s getting cold outside.

Besides it seems to me the light footed Others leave no tracks and their minions seem to mysteriously pop up outta the snow. When Bran and company are trying to get into BR’s cave that Coldhands dude couldn’t see them but he knew they were there.

[[Deleted]]

1 hour ago, John Doe said:

Can they walk though? Wouldn't they float? Which is, in my opinion, even creepier, but still. 

If Pirates Of The Carribean is to be believed, they sink and walk on the ocean floor.

Makes sense. They don't breathe, so there's no air to make them float, and most of them aren't fat, so even less floating.

However, even if they can do that, you have to hope they don't get caught in a riptide underwater. It'd be a pretty hilarious way for the invasion of Westeros to end with all the zombies getting suddenly swept out to sea. I can imagine the Night King standing on the shore watching, and talking in his language "Go! Go, my minions! Bring death, destruction, and despair to the Lands South of the Wall! For now the Longest Night has come, for now is our hour, for now... (riptide comes and sweeps his whole army out to sea) Well.......shit. Back to the drawing board, fellas."

[LynnS]

17 hours ago, Adam Yozza said:

I'd say it was part of the Wall's magic, like it's not just a physical barrier but also a magical one. Maybe the Others can't cross south of the Wall's latitude (or longitude, I'm not good at geography)  

I wonder if the WW are created from the magic contained in the Wall itself.

Quote

"You think so?" She knelt and scratched Ghost behind his ear. "Your Wall is a queer place, but there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it." DwD Jon VI

I am not a wolf, he thought. "And how would I do that?"

 

"I can show you." Melisandre draped one slender arm over Ghost, and the direwolf licked her face. "The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows."

So I wonder if the power of the Wall is used to cast white shadows.