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Those Chains


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At first I thought that those chains that the wights used were ridiculous-why would there be mile long chains just lying around north of the wall? Then I remembered the line from the books about the ice for the wall being quarried from lakes and suddenly things didn't seem so outlandish.

Let's take a look at where Jon and his companions were; a frozen lake not that far from the wall, perfect in short for ice quarrying. This is purely speculative of course, but using ropes in such a cold environment for dragging massive lumps of ice on sledges would have caused them to quickly become brittle and break, so perhaps at some point the Night's Watch switched over to using chains? Then, when ice-mining came to an end for lack of manpower, the chains could have been left in situ, perhaps in the hope that construction work would resume, which of course it never did. The Wildlings even if they found them would almost certainly lack the organisation to move them and probably the metalworking skills and tools to break down such massive links. So there they lay, forgotten in an abandoned quarry, until the terrible day they became useful again.

It's really the only explanation I can think of that makes any sense for there being massive chains north of the wall.

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Yeah, it makes no sense that the NK has 4 such huges chains. It's mentioned (at least in the books) that wildlings do not know how to create iron weapons and that they have to steal them. Only the Thenns know how to work with bronze but apparently not iron. Unless the NK did all the smith work himself of course......

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After the crazy 7 left on Drogons back, the NK and his army can be seen leaving the premise, obviousely they knew where to go look for chains and once they were back, they pulled out Viserion. Question now, where were the chains from? The closest bet would be Hardhome, plenty of old stuff can be found there, even some crashed and smashed up old ships to salvage. 

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So why would they not show a very short 10-15 second scene of the wights retrieving the chains from an abandoned quarry, if that was their reasoning?

The origin of the chain isn't the only issue with that scene. There's no explanation why the wights suddenly became expert scuba divers after being unable to swim across to the island to kill Jon's party.

To be honest, as cool as it was seeing Viserion fall through the ice after being shot down, it probably would have saved a lot of trouble and head scratching if they just left him lying dead on the surface. 

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24 minutes ago, Khorkalba said:

So why would they not show a very short 10-15 second scene of the wights retrieving the chains from an abandoned quarry, if that was their reasoning?

The origin of the chain isn't the only issue with that scene. There's no explanation why the wights suddenly became expert scuba divers after being unable to swim across to the island to kill Jon's party.

To be honest, as cool as it was seeing Viserion fall through the ice after being shot down, it probably would have saved a lot of trouble and head scratching if they just left him lying dead on the surface. 

They don't need to swim to get the chains around Viserion's neck. They can (presumably) walk on the bottom of the lack dragging the chains, wrap them around his neck, and then climb up the chains to get back out.

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4 hours ago, Valyrian Fyrewyrm said:

At first I thought that those chains that the wights used were ridiculous-why would there be mile long chains just lying around north of the wall? Then I remembered the line from the books about the ice for the wall being quarried from lakes and suddenly things didn't seem so outlandish.

Let's take a look at where Jon and his companions were; a frozen lake not that far from the wall, perfect in short for ice quarrying. This is purely speculative of course, but using ropes in such a cold environment for dragging massive lumps of ice on sledges would have caused them to quickly become brittle and break, so perhaps at some point the Night's Watch switched over to using chains? Then, when ice-mining came to an end for lack of manpower, the chains could have been left in situ, perhaps in the hope that construction work would resume, which of course it never did. The Wildlings even if they found them would almost certainly lack the organisation to move them and probably the metalworking skills and tools to break down such massive links. So there they lay, forgotten in an abandoned quarry, until the terrible day they became useful again.

It's really the only explanation I can think of that makes any sense for there being massive chains north of the wall.

I said this at the beginning of the week ago and it was ignored.  So, I'm glad someone on here had the same thought. :D. The only issue with it is that we don't really have a reference of when the NW stopped adding to the wall. There is also support for this outside of the books, since there was that giant anchor that was frozen into the wall and used to kill wildings climbing during the Battle of the Wall.  So, I guess that seems to support that whatever chains they used could survive/last in the cold temperatures of the North.

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4 hours ago, Valyrian Fyrewyrm said:

At first I thought that those chains that the wights used were ridiculous-why would there be mile long chains just lying around north of the wall? Then I remembered the line from the books about the ice for the wall being quarried from lakes and suddenly things didn't seem so outlandish.

Let's take a look at where Jon and his companions were; a frozen lake not that far from the wall, perfect in short for ice quarrying. This is purely speculative of course, but using ropes in such a cold environment for dragging massive lumps of ice on sledges would have caused them to quickly become brittle and break, so perhaps at some point the Night's Watch switched over to using chains? Then, when ice-mining came to an end for lack of manpower, the chains could have been left in situ, perhaps in the hope that construction work would resume, which of course it never did. The Wildlings even if they found them would almost certainly lack the organisation to move them and probably the metalworking skills and tools to break down such massive links. So there they lay, forgotten in an abandoned quarry, until the terrible day they became useful again.

It's really the only explanation I can think of that makes any sense for there being massive chains north of the wall.

I think the chain are from boat. We see when they pull the dragon, there is one wooden structure destroyed and it's wrapt by the same chains.So i will say boat's chains

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19 minutes ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

I don't even know why they needed to use chains at all... surely raising the dragon from it's death while under water and it flying up through the ice would had been a much cooler sight.

While I hate the chains in that scene, I think there's meant to be a difference between the NK lifting his arms to make humans into wights and the NK touched the brow. The NK touched the brow of Craster's sons and they became White Walkers. Viserion is touched on the brow and instead of a wighted dragon he becomes an ice dragon.

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1 hour ago, Sir Dingleberry said:

I said this at the beginning of the week ago and it was ignored.  So, I'm glad someone on here had the same thought. :D. The only issue with it is that we don't really have a reference of when the NW stopped adding to the wall. There is also support for this outside of the books, since there was that giant anchor that was frozen into the wall and used to kill wildings climbing during the Battle of the Wall.  So, I guess that seems to support that whatever chains they used could survive/last in the cold temperatures of the North.

I didn't see that, otherwise I would have commented there lol.

I'm guessing the Watch stopped adding to the wall sometime around the reign of Jaehaerys I or at least up until a point when most of the Castles were still manned? If the Watch was having trouble keeping up the Nightfort then I'm sure the much more arduous task of adding to the wall would have stopped even before then.

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5 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

 

While I hate the chains in that scene, I think there's meant to be a difference between the NK lifting his arms to make humans into wights and the NK touched the brow. The NK touched the brow of Craster's sons and they became White Walkers. Viserion is touched on the brow and instead of a wighted dragon he becomes an ice dragon.

Still though.... the NK himself can't die from being under water... if the touching brow thing was a need be... jump in himself and do it... it would still be far more believable than these chains appearing out of nowhere. but I hadn't thought of the touch over raised arm thing good point.

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1 hour ago, Kytheros said:

They don't need to swim to get the chains around Viserion's neck. They can (presumably) walk on the bottom of the lack dragging the chains, wrap them around his neck, and then climb up the chains to get back out.

I guess.

The mental image of that happening is a little bit too cartoony for my tastes though.

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11 minutes ago, Valyrian Fyrewyrm said:

I didn't see that, otherwise I would have commented there lol.

I'm guessing the Watch stopped adding to the wall sometime around the reign of Jaehaerys I or at least up until a point when most of the Castles were still manned? If the Watch was having trouble keeping up the Nightfort then I'm sure the much more arduous task of adding to the wall would have stopped even before then.

I agree but isn't the wall more like a hill type design in that some areas are higher/more developed than others? Didn't the Wildings mention that back when they were talking about climbing the wall? Not saying you aren't right but could mean that Castle Black continued to add even after the NW began to lose men/castles/support.

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17 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

 

While I hate the chains in that scene, I think there's meant to be a difference between the NK lifting his arms to make humans into wights and the NK touched the brow. The NK touched the brow of Craster's sons and they became White Walkers. Viserion is touched on the brow and instead of a wighted dragon he becomes an ice dragon.

Does that change anything, by being touched as opposed to being raised? I mean the obvious difference is the WW seem to be able to function on their own but still over the NK, as opposed to the wights who blindly do whatever they're told.  I mean does that mean Viserion will have a little bit of a free will here (not saying the show will ever go into that type of depth but just curious).

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18 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

 

While I hate the chains in that scene, I think there's meant to be a difference between the NK lifting his arms to make humans into wights and the NK touched the brow. The NK touched the brow of Craster's sons and they became White Walkers. Viserion is touched on the brow and instead of a wighted dragon he becomes an ice dragon.

The babies were alive, the dragon wasn't. The NK can make living things into White Walkers, or Others or Neverborns or whatever they are, not dead things. The dragon would now logically be like the polar bear, a reanimated dead animal.

Of course, the show has not been logical and the dragons are magical, so who knows.

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1 minute ago, Sir Dingleberry said:

Does that change anything, by being touched as opposed to being raised? I mean the obvious difference is the WW seem to be able to function on their own but still over the NK, as opposed to the wights who blindly do whatever they're told.  I mean does that mean Viserion will have a little bit of a free will here (not saying the show will ever go into that type of depth but just curious).

I'd say it means he's fireproof?

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