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19 forts = 19 gates


Wolfkin

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There are 19 forts along the Wall. I am ASSUMING that also means 19 doors/gates that lead North/South of the Wall.

Mance stated to Jon, that when he journeyed to Winterfell for King Robert's feast, he climbed Long Borrow and joined up with King Robert's hedge knights before reaching Winterfell.

He had once been a sworn brother, stationed at Shadow Tower.

He knows the Wall as well as many of the Night's Watch. He knows of the other empty forts, and the neglect. 

So why would he try and lead the people through Castle Black's gate; the seat of the Lord Commander and the most fortified fort of the 19?

Why didn't he go through one of the other gates with his mammoths, giants and army? 

I know it's a silly question, but of course I have to ask!

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13 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

So why would he try and lead the people through Castle Black's gate; the seat of the Lord Commander and the most fortified fort of the 19?

 

Maybe he just thought it would be easy to take. The NW numbers in that point on the story were ridiculous.

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5 hours ago, Wolfkin said:

There are 19 forts along the Wall. I am ASSUMING that also means 19 doors/gates that lead North/South of the Wall.

...

He knows the Wall as well as many of the Night's Watch. He knows of the other empty forts, and the neglect. 

...

Why didn't he go through one of the other gates with his mammoths, giants and army? 

 

I was pondering this some time ago when I was wondering how Gared got south of the Wall and I came to a couple of conclusions:

There may not be nineteen gates at all. We are assuming that the Watch sent rangers/large forces from every post in the past when the Wall was fully garrisoned and that may not be true. They may have only sent ranging parties from certain locations since it wouldn't be necessary to have so much overlap on that duty (seriously, what's out there that requires such constant attention now that the Wall is secure and you can literally see miles away from the top?). The only good reason to have a gate at every garrison is to allow for easy provisioning (and possible retreat) of a ranging party and to be able to report face to face with a garrison commander if you're north of the Wall, and they may have forgone this convenience for security's sake.

The other answer is that there were more gates (possibly nineteen in total), but when the castles were abandoned the gates and tunnels were filled with rubble (or, possibly, filled in with proper masonry) and allowed to freeze over so that they were, by book time, as solid as any other part of the Wall. Finding these points from the outside after several hundred years would be tricky at best.

Mance indeed would know all of this, but it is clear he has no idea of the Black Gate. Otherwise, he would have led a substantial number of Wildings through there to attack from the rear as well, instead of having them climb the Wall and do a raiding party earlier with Jon and Co. He could have led thousands through there with no one the wiser for it.

 

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4 hours ago, Three-Fingered Pete said:

The other answer is that there were more gates (possibly nineteen in total), but when the castles were abandoned the gates and tunnels were filled with rubble (or, possibly, filled in with proper masonry) and allowed to freeze over so that they were, by book time, as solid as any other part of the Wall. Finding these points from the outside after several hundred years would be tricky at best.

This truly makes a lot of sense, I hadn't even considered these options. Seems like the Wall did a lot of weeping, and I can imagine the ice melting off, and slowly forming icicles, and eventually just closing those gates completely. 

I sure do thank you for taking the time to post a reply, Three-Fingered Pete.

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On ‎1‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 11:43 PM, Wolfkin said:

There are 19 forts along the Wall. I am ASSUMING that also means 19 doors/gates that lead North/South of the Wall.

Mance stated to Jon, that when he journeyed to Winterfell for King Robert's feast, he climbed Long Borrow and joined up with King Robert's hedge knights before reaching Winterfell.

He had once been a sworn brother, stationed at Shadow Tower.

He knows the Wall as well as many of the Night's Watch. He knows of the other empty forts, and the neglect. 

So why would he try and lead the people through Castle Black's gate; the seat of the Lord Commander and the most fortified fort of the 19?

Why didn't he go through one of the other gates with his mammoths, giants and army? 

I know it's a silly question, but of course I have to ask!

There's no reason to think they didn't do to all the gates what they did when they left the Nightfort:

Quote

The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the day the black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake; its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as impenetrable as the Wall itself.

 

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

There's no reason to think they didn't do to all the gates what they did when they left the Nightfort:

Quote

The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the day the black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake; its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as impenetrable as the Wall itself.

Thank you for the quote John Suburbs! I appreciate your reply.

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I found another quote to add to this as well. 

This is from Bran's III chapter in aSoS as he and the Reeds are talking of how to get to the other side of the Wall.

"My uncle said the gates are sealed with ice and stone whenever a castle had to be abandoned," Bran said.
 

 

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