The Wall, the Watch and a heresy

[kissdbyfire]

I wasn't very clear in my earlier post - I forget that people can't see into my head!

lol I get it. I do that all the time! Have to keep reminding myself that people here can't hear the tone of my voice, nor share the 'all over the place' thing going on inside my head...

but I don't think Dany is a skinchanger, nor will she become one. I guess the similarities I see between the Stark wargs and the Targ dragons is that I think the dragon hatching involves the transferral of an unborn infant's "soul" (consciousness, identity, life) into a dragon embryo. In other words, I think Rhaego actually became Drogo - his consciousness infusing the dragon embryo, and merging with it. So, in a sense, Rhaego (not Dany) is warging with the dragon, like Varamyr merges with his wolf after he experiences the true death. If you notice, the Stark warging ability is easiest (and perhaps strongest) for the younger Starks. Arya and Bran have no trouble connecting with Nymeria and Summer via their wolf dreams, whereas Jon and Robb (presumably) resist their connections with Ghost and Grey Wind. And Rickon, the youngest, is so deeply connected to Shaggydog that, while at Winterfell, Shaggydog is prowling around angrily looking for his pack while Rickon is doing and feeling the exact same thing. Rickon and Shaggydog are merging, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a very feral boy-cub when next we meet Rickon. So, I think the younger the warg is, the more complete the connection. And if you go back to the womb, a full-fledged transferral takes place. Or something like that, anyway! :drunk:

I know the theory is nebulous, but I can't help but think that it's all the same type of magic, just variations thereof. Like the stories that keep repeating themselves in ASoIaF, or the themes that crop up over and over: the same melody, just plucked on different instruments.

No. Not nebulous at all. I think it makes perfect sense, actually. The only bit I disagree is when you say the link between the Stark kids and their direwolves is age-related. I mean, I think that 'can/could' play a part as well, but I think it's more to do with how/who the kids are. I'm not making sense, am I? It makes sense in my head... lol

For instance, Shaggydog is feral and wild BECAUSE Rickon is feral and wild. Didn't mean to 'shout', just wanted to emphasise the word and can't put it in bold. Do you see what I mean? I hate not typing in the computer...

:-)

[Capon Breath]

In the course of this debate I've been persuaded by Capon Breath's suggestion that the Wall was actually built by the Children to hold back Winter itself.

Awesome ! You always make quality, well researched post so im very happy I could enrich your thought process in some way.

When I said that yesterday it seemed like a bit of a throw away thought but a couple of people seem to like it so without much evidence here are my possible builds. The Children make reference to being few in numbers and slow to reproduce, given their perceived link to nature, what if they need a winter to "hibernate" in some way to enable them to reproduce? Might explain why they are North of the Wall where its colder?

[Capon Breath]

“Gone down into the earth,” she answered. “Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

Ok so my grammar is lousy but maybe these 2 bolded sentences can be read in 2 ways.

1 - "Them" refers to the Old races mentioned in the previous sentence "Us" refers to the COTF and the comment is a lament about the destructive role of man. eg/ due to man all of the Old races will die out.

2 - This is a chilling apocalyptic promise by Leaf. "Them" in this instance refers to Men from the same sentence and "Us" refers to the old races. The COTF have watched men to the point where it is too much and know they must now unleash the True WInter they have held back via their magical wall for 8000 years. This will wipe out all the sentient races.

This would support a COTF brought about Winter as a WMD and the Wall holds back WInter argument if such is your fancy.

[Eyron]

Yeah - not knowing the exact timeline is frustrating. But with all the "promise me's", and "promised princes", and sacred oaths, etc. floating around these books, it's hard not to conclude that some pact somewhere was broken!

Very good points. From the legends, the Children had all sorts of strong magic at their disposal - dominion over all creatures (skinchanging abilities, I'd guess), as well as the power over earth and water. Also the weirwood net, of course. You'd think with all that magic, they should have been able to defeat the First Men easily, or at least force them out of Westeros. But maybe their numbers were just too few, and even with all their magic, they just couldn't stem the tide?

This is probably right, their abilities can have a limit, but the greenseers do seem to have a great advantage.

Something happened at the Neck, this is where the north begins and where the First Men built Moat Cailin as a defence from the south. Moat Cailin were already built when the Children was said to have summoned the hammer of water to "break" the Neck... The Children did not build houses of stone, so the Children had either taken Moat Cailin from the First Men or they had a part in building it and perhaps in defending it. It is said that it is older than the Andal invasion, and still is a defence from the south, so what were these First Men and perhaps the Children defending themselves from at that time? We know that the First men warred amongst themselves, but was the North already distancing themselves from the southern First Men kingdoms?

Or was Moat Cailin a defence from the North originally? I can't think right now :) I have to get back to this...

:D Tree ninjas! I love it - kinda like Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, right? Hey - now I'm reminded of Arya practicing her swordsmanship up in the branches of the weirwood at Harrenhal!

Precisely!

Wow good recollection on Aryas training!

Thinking of Harrenhal... It's is a cursed place according to the Andals, full of ghosts... I read somewhere that it is believed to be cursed because they cut down huge weirwoods to make the beams when building it. And we know now that even the cut down weirwoods and pieces of the wood can still have some "magic" left.

Thinking of ghosts... :)

There has been an awful lot of references to ghosts and shadows coming back, from all over the place. At first it was the Starks in the crypts being "kept in place" in their tombs, Jon dreaming of the tombs all opening, Mirri Maz Duur and her shadows in the tent, Dany seing the dead Wolf-King looking at her in the house of the Undying, then Ygritte talking about the opening of the graves in search of Joramuns horn and the shadows being released, Melisandre shadows, Damphair going on about "What is dead can never die, but rises again, harder and stronger", and then even Jaime has a talk with his dead mother. And Leaf telling Bran he should not try to bring back his dead father. And probably some more occasions that I have forgotten.

It seems this has always been an issue in the North, and not so much a problem in the south before, except in the haunted places of the Children. It seems to connect mostly with the First Men (which the free folk are a part of) and the Children. I can't remember any other exceptions than Jaime, in Westeros. From Leafs statement it seems the Children does not want the dead coming back, at least not Eddard Stark.

I always thought the Starks had some old debt to pay to the Children, which is why they are kept in their tombs with the iron swords to keep them in place (and the White Walkers hate iron according to Old Nan). I know I am repeating myself, but I have not elaborated much on this here. Are the dead Starks being protected by this or are they being bound from "escaping" and coming back?

As mentioned before the First Men probably learned a lot of things including warging and perhaps some magic from the Children, and likely they misused it at some point. And through history there seems to have been two different types of Starks, the honourable and calm versus the wild and fierce. Just food for thought...

On another note:

The Children in the cave fight off the cold creeping in through the stoned [edit: stones of course heh] with fire, so they don't like cold at least and use fire, something I guess they learned from the First Men.

[kissdbyfire]

Ok so my grammar is lousy but maybe these 2 bolded sentences can be read in 2 ways.

1 - "Them" refers to the Old races mentioned in the previous sentence "Us" refers to the COTF and the comment is a lament about the destructive role of man. eg/ due to man all of the Old races will die out.

2 - This is a chilling apocalyptic promise by Leaf. "Them" in this instance refers to Men from the same sentence and "Us" refers to the old races. The COTF have watched men to the point where it is too much and know they must now unleash the True WInter they have held back via their magical wall for 8000 years. This will wipe out all the sentient races.

This would support a COTF brought about Winter as a WMD and the Wall holds back WInter argument if such is your fancy.

I think maybe you forgot the last phrase in the paragraph you've quoted from my post and the book. Here, let me paste it here, from the bit with the direwolves, for context:

"The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

And again, just the bit you've left out (conveniently?):

"In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

That doesn't sound at like the second option in your post.

:-)

[Eyron]

I think maybe you forgot the last phrase in the paragraph you've quoted from my post and the book. Here, let me paste it here, from the bit with the direwolves, for context:

"The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

And again, just the bit you've left out (conveniently?):

"In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

That doesn't sound at like the second option in your post.

:-)

I must be missing your point here, what is the missing bit? All that text is included in Capon Breaths post.

@Hotweaselsoup, About the dragons and warging, I do think that some spirits of the dead could have been "called back" to give life to the dragons, but not the same way that warging works. Magic of fire and blood was needed to waken the dragons whereas warging seem to be some inherent ability in a chosen few.

I mean where did Rhaego go between dying and entering Drogon? Or did he go into the stone egg at once? I can believe that Rhaego possibly is Drogon but not by warging.

[kissdbyfire]

Ok so my grammar is lousy but maybe these 2 bolded sentences can be read in 2 ways.

1 - "Them" refers to the Old races mentioned in the previous sentence "Us" refers to the COTF and the comment is a lament about the destructive role of man. eg/ due to man all of the Old races will die out.

2 - This is a chilling apocalyptic promise by Leaf. "Them" in this instance refers to Men from the same sentence and "Us" refers to the old races. The COTF have watched men to the point where it is too much and know they must now unleash the True WInter they have held back via their magical wall for 8000 years. This will wipe out all the sentient races.

This would support a COTF brought about Winter as a WMD and the Wall holds back WInter argument if such is your fancy.

Capon, what can I say? I'm an idiot. I checked and double checked, and didn't see the bit I said was missing. I'm lazy as well; if I weren't I'd go to the computer and fill this post of apologetic smileys... :-(

@Eira, cheers for the heads-up on my faux pas.

[Lady of Long Lake]

I don't think this is too tangential; This thread and the Jaime & Bran thread are the two that seem to be most receptive to the importance of the Dunk & Egg stories, which the parallels are too constant to completely ignore...

What about Sam's role in all of this? As a man of the Night's Watch, a born Tarly making him by blood closely associated with Old Town and the Maesters, and now journeying to the Citadel. There some diving into to connections with Norse Mythology thanks to Hodor and Hodur (and i highly recommend looking at the Jaime & bran thread for what was discussed there more for the fun than convincing anyone that this is just a Norse retelling expanded for the grand scheme of these novels), i don't get too hung up on names connecting outside of this universe, but Names Do connect INside this story.

Sam travels with Aemon and *Dareon* to go to Old Town. Yes, Aemon, not Aegon, but Egg travels with Dareon who is too cowardly to fight in the tournament. Dareon in AFFC also opts out of his mission. Sam just doesn't fly as another set of eyes in a different part of the world.

Sam is significant, and I'm curious in what way the Dunk & Egg story will reflect on his role.

I think Sam will save the day:) You give that boy enough books and scrolls and he WILL figure out what is causing all these magical mysteries and how to halt the Long Night.

[hotweaselsoup]

This is probably right, their abilities can have a limit, but the greenseers do seem to have a great advantage.

Something happened at the Neck, this is where the north begins and where the First Men built Moat Cailin as a defence from the south. Moat Cailin were already built when the Children was said to have summoned the hammer of water to "break" the Neck... The Children did not build houses of stone, so the Children had either taken Moat Cailin from the First Men or they had a part in building it and perhaps in defending it. It is said that it is older than the Andal invasion, and still is a defence from the south, so what were these First Men and perhaps the Children defending themselves from at that time? We know that the First men warred amongst themselves, but was the North already distancing themselves from the southern First Men kingdoms?

Or was Moat Cailin a defence from the North originally? I can't think right now :) I have to get back to this...

Precisely!

Wow good recollection on Aryas training!

Thinking of Harrenhal... It's is a cursed place according to the Andals, full of ghosts... I read somewhere that it is believed to be cursed because they cut down huge weirwoods to make the beams when building it. And we know now that even the cut down weirwoods and pieces of the wood can still have some "magic" left.

Thinking of ghosts... :)

There has been an awful lot of references to ghosts and shadows coming back, from all over the place. At first it was the Starks in the crypts being "kept in place" in their tombs, Jon dreaming of the tombs all opening, Mirri Maz Duur and her shadows in the tent, Dany seing the dead Wolf-King looking at her in the house of the Undying, then Ygritte talking about the opening of the graves in search of Joramuns horn and the shadows being released, Melisandre shadows, Damphair going on about "What is dead can never die, but rises again, harder and stronger", and then even Jaime has a talk with his dead mother. And Leaf telling Bran he should not try to bring back his dead father. And probably some more occasions that I have forgotten.

It seems this has always been an issue in the North, and not so much a problem in the south before, except in the haunted places of the Children. It seems to connect mostly with the First Men (which the free folk are a part of) and the Children. I can't remember any other exceptions than Jaime, in Westeros. From Leafs statement it seems the Children does not want the dead coming back, at least not Eddard Stark.

I always thought the Starks had some old debt to pay to the Children, which is why they are kept in their tombs with the iron swords to keep them in place (and the White Walkers hate iron according to Old Nan). I know I am repeating myself, but I have not elaborated much on this here. Are the dead Starks being protected by this or are they being bound from "escaping" and coming back?

As mentioned before the First Men probably learned a lot of things including warging and perhaps some magic from the Children, and likely they misused it at some point. And through history there seems to have been two different types of Starks, the honourable and calm versus the wild and fierce. Just food for thought...

On another note:

The Children in the cave fight off the cold creeping in through the stoned [edit: stones of course heh] with fire, so they don't like cold at least and use fire, something I guess they learned from the First Men.

OMG - Could the White Walkers be ghosts? The ghosts of dead Starks? :stunned:

[TrueLion]

Thinking of ghosts... :)

There has been an awful lot of references to ghosts and shadows coming back, from all over the place. At first it was the Starks in the crypts being "kept in place" in their tombs, Jon dreaming of the tombs all opening, Mirri Maz Duur and her shadows in the tent, Dany seing the dead Wolf-King looking at her in the house of the Undying, then Ygritte talking about the opening of the graves in search of Joramuns horn and the shadows being released, Melisandre shadows, Damphair going on about "What is dead can never die, but rises again, harder and stronger", and then even Jaime has a talk with his dead mother. And Leaf telling Bran he should not try to bring back his dead father. And probably some more occasions that I have forgotten.

Catelyn mentions specifically northern ghosts who prey on southron blood, while going through Moat Cailin for the first time I think, and again when she laments about the Silent Sisters and their ability to talk to the dead, which she envies.

Sam also mentions something; when Jon dreams of Ned and Robb in Winterfell's hall talking, Sam thinks that the living can't speak with the dead. But Jon was close enough to this death-conversation to know it was happening.

I totally love ghosts though, so I kinda hope they make an appearance here.

It seems this has always been an issue in the North, and not so much a problem in the south before, except in the haunted places of the Children. It seems to connect mostly with the First Men (which the free folk are a part of) and the Children. I can't remember any other exceptions than Jaime, in Westeros. From Leafs statement it seems the Children does not want the dead coming back, at least not Eddard Stark.

I always thought the Starks had some old debt to pay to the Children, which is why they are kept in their tombs with the iron swords to keep them in place (and the White Walkers hate iron according to Old Nan). I know I am repeating myself, but I have not elaborated much on this here. Are the dead Starks being protected by this or are they being bound from "escaping" and coming back?

I think so, and agree whole-heartedly. Ned sincerely hopes the dead Kings of Winter haven't risen in AGoT, and there must be a reason.

[Free Northman]

Possibly, possibly, but given that the First Men were obviously winning the war against the Children, having them unleash something as destructive as the Long Winter - and somebody did because GRRM says it was magical - provides us with a reason why both sides agreed the pact, and also why Old Nan's story was interupted at that point. If the Last Hero had simply found the Children and got them to help, why conceal the ending of the story because that would have been a happy ending?

I don't have a problem with the idea that the Children were somehow responsible for unleashing the Long Winter in a desperate last attempt to fight back against the First Men. But that would have been an act of desperation, and as much the First Men's fault as the Children's.

On that note, a way in which it all can tie together is through the Hammer of the Waters.

About 10 000 years ago, the Children brought down an asteroid to shatter the Arm of Dorne. This is the event that Daeny's handmaid tells her about, when there were two moons in the sky and one shattered and spewed forth dragons. So this asteroid that the Children brought down happened to contain two magical and opposing forces - Fire and Ice. The force of Fire was represented by Dragons, and the force of Ice by the Others.

Over the next two thousand years, these forces germinated in their respective landing spots - Fire in the East, and the others in the North - and gradually grew stronger.

Finally, about 8000 years ago, the force of Ice was powerful enough to launch the Long Night.

Hence, the Long Night and the Others would in effect be an unintended side effect of the Children's cataclysmic attempt to shatter the Arm of Dorne, in their desperation to resist the relentless onslaught of the First Men.

[Black Crow]

I don't have a problem with the idea that the Children were somehow responsible for unleashing the Long Winter in a desperate last attempt to fight back against the First Men. But that would have been an act of desperation, and as much the First Men's fault as the Children's.

That's how I see it, though at this stage I'm not ready to go along with the rest of your post.

Returning to the White Walkers, I think Eira might be getting somewhere. We've been told some of them are Craster's sons, which indicates a human origin and I'm still very much inclined to tie them in to the Children and that they originally raised them up during the Long Winter to to go out there in the cold and snow to fight the First Men, while the Children themselves stayed warm in the caves.

This scenario doesn't necessarily mean that the White Walkers are still working for the Children because it wouldn't be the first or the last time that allies were cut adrift when no longer required, but the Stark business bothers me - the use of iron to keep them in their graves. While its almost certainly just tradition now it may have harked back to a practical necessity long ago when they were Kings of Winter. Was this for example what happened when Mance set his people to digging those other graves - ie; it wasn't the digging of them but the removal of iron grave goods which released the shadows.

Just an evil thought and one not to be taken seriously, there has been a lot of speculation about Mel raising up unJon to be AA, but what if the Stark genes see him rise up as a White Walker :devil:

[Kennit]

This thread made me think; could the Wall be a hereditary seat of a branch of the Starks(the Night's King being the last of that line)?

[Eyron]

OMG - Could the White Walkers be ghosts? The ghosts of dead Starks? :stunned:

I have had that uneasy feeling for a while, that this is the case...

I really want to know about the Starks past and what is up with the crypts, and that the Starks of old were sinister and very unlike the Ned would be the best way to continue that storyline according to me.

Catelyn mentions specifically northern ghosts who prey on southron blood, while going through Moat Cailin for the first time I think, and again when she laments about the Silent Sisters and their ability to talk to the dead, which she envies.

Sam also mentions something; when Jon dreams of Ned and Robb in Winterfell's hall talking, Sam thinks that the living can't speak with the dead. But Jon was close enough to this death-conversation to know it was happening.

I totally love ghosts though, so I kinda hope they make an appearance here.

I think so, and agree whole-heartedly. Ned sincerely hopes the dead Kings of Winter haven't risen in AGoT, and there must be a reason.

Totally forgot Catelyns thoughts on this subject, good catch!

There must be a reason for all these ghost references and Neds worries and it has to come into play soon... I think the ghosts are coming to life when magic is growing stronger somehow, perhaps like Mirri Maz Duur did when she summoned shadows/ghosts and brought back Drogo.

So perhaps the AAR prophecy is just a way to tell the R'hllor followers how to bring back AA (with a sacrifice a la Nissa Nissa), and that will mean that they literally will bring back the first AA to life, in someone elses body. :uhoh:

I have had another idea about the ice and fire similarities.

• The winter (the cold winds) kills all living things and spreads from the north and the dead come back to life from ice magic.
  
• And from Asshai the ghost-grass is spreading and killing all other living things (according to the Dothraki) and their dead come back from fire magic.
  

What if there is more to it? It seems the Asshai R'hllor cult is spreading wildly over the world and whatever happens in Asshai is generating a shadow that covers that part of the continent, perhaps the magic wielded in Asshai is consuming life (like Melisandres shadows we discussed earlier) but in that part of the world there is no equivalent to the Children or the Wall to stop it's dominance? Or maybe there is such an equivalent (some Quarth group I have suppressed in my mind, or the Dothraki crones?) and we have just not realized who they are yet.

Who the AA was and what he did is still a mystery to me, I really liked the Night's Watch theory and the connection to the Last Hero, but thinking about it again I realized that what the AAR is supposed to fight is darkness - as in shadows - as in Asshai? Does that not even fit better to the prophecy than winter? Melisandre has been wrong before... Or maybe there is suppose to be one fighting winter and one fighting the shadow of Asshai.

I guess we will not know what really goes on in Asshai but we may get glimpses from people that have been there. Anyway I was thinking that whatever is rising in Asshai could be the reason for the fire magic growing strong and the dragons being able to hatch and also the reason the winter growing stronger again, with White Walkers coming south (since this happened before the dragons were hatched).

So looking at what Dany is doing it seems she is destined to go southeast to Asshai and to the dosh khaleen first perhaps, BUT with her Dothraki horde who does not like the Asshai or the ghost-grass, whereas the lands of always winter is northwest, where Bran is with the children who (I believe) are fighting winter. So what if Dany is not going to Westeros at all, but instead goes to Asshai to defeat whatever goes on there?

And perhaps emerge on the other side, coming to Westeros from the north. I know this part has been mentioned before in other threads so that is not my own idea, but how is she ever going to come to Westeros otherwise... But I am fine with her never showing up so this part does not matter so much to me.

I have been thinking about the saying "fighting fire with fire" and the parallel to the Wall of ice as a defence from ice and winter, and I am obsessed with symmetry... So there should be someone fighting fire with fire according to my OCD :) Hey Dany! Yes you...

There are also similarities between Jon and Rhaego, they are/were both a link between two cultures in their respective continent. Jon is/was likely half Targ - half Northman, and maybe be "the balance" in Westeros. Rhaego is/was half Dothraki - half Targ and he could be/have been the balance in Essos.

But maybe since Dany has free will and Dothraki to back her up even without Rhaego, she is now going to fight against the red priests instead of being their fire champion, just like Bran ended up helping the Children instead of going to the dark side (the Kings of Winter?). I wouldn't be surprised to see some good come from Dany's growing paranoia so maybe she will not trust Moqorro, if he ever finds her. And if the Children had not intervened and brought Bran to them, he may have become someone else entirely.

About the AAR, I am thinking there is one to fight the shadows in Asshai and one to fight winter in Westeros, and one to make balance between the two forces so neither get's total dominance, and they all happen to be promised princes (can't take credit for for that idea either), namely

Dany: bringing back the dragons - to fight the shadow, fire is the Targaryen element

Bran: the expected greenseer - to fight winter, ice is the Starks element

Jon: the Ice and Fire combo - to create a balance somehow...

Or maybe not, I am confused as always...

Sorry for going slightly off topic, it is still relevant to the discussion, no?

[uncle fester]

I don't agree with the OP but it's a good one all the same because it provokes debate.

The COTF and Others may have been aligned at some time in the past but not now (who put the wights outside the COTF cave otherwise?).

We also don't know for sure that the COTF are only north of the wall. There are hints that they might still be on the Isle of Faces and there's that crone who met the BWB and recoiled from Arya.

The wall is built to be defended from the south (that's where the access is from) and was reputedly built by giants. It might be ice as a physical barrier but the magic wards (which we know are at Storm's End too) prevent the passage of the Others and wights. We don't know for certain that it blocks COTF and why would it, considering that it was probably their magic in the first place!

What I do reckon is that the COTF are nominally on the side of the "good guys" but are so amoral in their calculations that they may as well be evil. Look at their callous disregard for Coldhands. Look at the strongly hinted fate of Jojen Reed.

These guys are hard nuts. If wiping out half the humans of Westeros is what it takes to stop the Others, I imagine that they wouldn't blink.

[Black Crow]

The COTF and Others may have been aligned at some time in the past but not now (who put the wights outside the COTF cave otherwise?).

The Children did - its a defensive minefield.

[hotweaselsoup]

Just an evil thought and one not to be taken seriously, there has been a lot of speculation about Mel raising up unJon to be AA, but what if the Stark genes see him rise up as a White Walker :devil:

Not sure about Jon, but maybe we'll get to see Robb and Ned again after all. Their bones are not yet resting easy in the crypts of Winterfell, right? Angry, vengeful, dead Starks - what could be better?

(The name of the Haunted Forest makes a bit more sense, now.)

[Lady of Long Lake]

OMG - Could the White Walkers be ghosts? The ghosts of dead Starks? :stunned:

I've always wondered if it could be the ghosts of the Children whose tree had been cut down. Even when they die, they live on through the trees, I think BR says. What if every one living weirwood tree is connected to one dead Child of the Forest? When the tree is cut down, that Child's spirit might be vengeful. They've lost their 'lifeline' to the living world when their tree was felled.

There was a lot of weirwoods being cut down too when the First Men came. But the Others came 2000 yrs after the First Men so I doubt my weirwood thoughts are a possibility.

[mrazny]

The wall is built to be defended from the south (that's where the access is from) and was reputedly built by giants.

I don't believe it's hard evidence it was built to be defended from the south. It's *currently* defended from the south. The castles aren't made out of Ice, men put in steps that are reinforced with wood. The only thing that it seems directly related to Bran the Builder's creation is the tunnel with the weirwood gate.

Who are the Starks originally and why must there always be a Stark in Winterfell? Was that part of the Pact?

A couple of timeline pieces... The First Men never fully lost to the Andals, they maintained the North. I'm not sure there was actually ANY evidence of the Andals being associated with the North before Aegon conquered Westeros. When did the wildings live north of the wall and stay completely separate from the rest of the *north*? The wildings in a lot of ways have the feel of the flints that just don't bend the knee.

Perhaps that's what the Night's King story is in effect, the true separation of the first men of the south of the wall and the first men "wildings" north of the wall. And when did the seven become a part of the NW? Perhaps not the targaryen's propagated the seven north of moat cailin, at which point the men of the NW no longer take their vows before the weirwoods, andals and ironborn started manning the wall, and the wildings became a convenient focus for manning the wall. The faith of the seven continuously eroded the purpose of the NW and slowly turned them away from being "true". A Stark's presence has helped slow a catastrophe?

The dragons then were what allowed the north to bend the knee to something other than starks and first men. Maybe the Citadel knows this importance and can see how the NW is failing, and at THAT point decides to kill off the Dragons in hope that order can be restored and the Long Winter can be avoided?

[Black Crow]

Essentially that's what I've been arguing about the Nights Watch.

Originally the Wall itself wouldn't have needed to be guarded if it was a barrier against Winter which is why the only passage through the Wall was the secret one below what's now called the Nightfort, and could be accessed only by true men of the Watch, who may otherwise have been based at Winterfell.

This passage would have allowed the Watch to keep in regular contact with the Children and the White Walkers - how else could the Nights King meet and marry - but when he was deposed and the Watch switched their allegiance to the Seven, they were no longer true and couldn't access the portal, so the ground level gates were then driven through the Wall and the "castles" built to hold them.