Is a unified Westeros bad for the Night’s Watch?

[infinitesunrise]

I haven't read through the whole thread, so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but I do agree. And, maybe I'm wrong, but I wonder if the tradition of "The Watch takes no part" might have been a bit easier to uphold when there were seven separate kingdoms. They would've truly been serving "the realms of men" and there would be less pressure to keep a particular monarch happy. More room for independence, I think...(but I could be way off.)

[ab aeterno]

I haven't read through the whole thread, so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but I do agree. And, maybe I'm wrong, but I wonder if the tradition of "The Watch takes no part" might have been a bit easier to uphold when there were seven separate kingdoms. They would've truly been serving "the realms of men" and there would be less pressure to serve one particular monarch. More room for independence, I think...(but I could be way off.)

Maybe, personally I suspect the opposite would have been true: When there were Seven Kingdoms they were all going to war with each other so the NW had to take no part- i.e. not join any of them, and not ally with any of them, even the north, lest the north lose. When there is one united Westeros, taking no part is less important because there are fewer potential kings to join i.e. one king and maybe a claimant or two, but not seven (or five, until just recently.) You may be right though.

[Kosh Naranek]

How long have the Others been gone? I think that is key. What the NW is supposedly fighting has fallen into myth and legend.

Why would nobles send their sons to the Wall to freeze fighting a foe that no one believes exists anymore? Many have begun to doubt they ever existed.

The Targs ruled for 300 years. One ruler did bequeath the new gift. Did they think that if the NW had more smallfolk, the smallfolk could better support the Watch by providing food and labor? That is how things work in a feudal society. But, perhaps the real issue the NW was already facing was lack of men? If they don't have enough men to protect their smallfolk, giving them more land is not going to help.

Crowsfood Umber's daughter was carried off by Wildlings. Therefore, raiders were making it to Last Hearth around the time the Greatjon was young. (I assume the Greatjon and his cousin would have been contemporaries.)

So, the NW has really declined in what the last 100 years? Once a "brotherhood" gets the reputation as a safe haven of rapers and murderers....

[infinitesunrise]

Maybe, personally I suspect the opposite would have been true: When there were Seven Kingdoms they were all going to war with each other so the NW had to take no part- i.e. not join any of them, and not ally with any of them, even the north, lest the north lose. When there is one united Westeros, taking no part is less important because there are fewer potential kings to join i.e. one king and maybe a claimant or two, but not seven (or five, until just recently.) You may be right though

I see what you're saying. I guess it could also come down to how dependent they are on said kingdom (s) for supplies and what not, too. Like "Well we gave you this and that to last through whenever, so you should help us."

[ab aeterno]

I think we're told that the New Gift was fine at first, but over time people gradually left. I think you're right on the first point though. For my money, the most likely explanation is that people have forgotten why the NW is important.

[Buried Treasure]

They probably forgot why the NW is really important centuries, or millenia, ago. I really doubt that can account for the recent decline.

The change from seven kingdoms to one I think did change the way the NW is viewed. Stannis knows his kingdom ends at the Wall but thinks it includes the Wall and the NW, and others express the same sentiment about the NW serving the Iron Throne (the Bravosi banker for one). I think the Starks knew their kingdom ended at the Gift, even though they were strong supporters of the Watch and would intervene when the Watch stepped out of line.

[infinitesunrise]

They probably forgot why the NW is really important centuries, or millenia, ago. I really doubt that can account for the recent decline.

The change from seven kingdoms to one I think did change the way the NW is viewed. Stannis knows his kingdom ends at the Wall but thinks it includes the Wall and the NW, and others express the same sentiment about the NW serving the Iron Throne (the Bravosi banker for one). I think the Starks knew their kingdom ended at the Gift, even though they were strong supporters of the Watch and would intervene when the Watch stepped out of line.

You worded that so much better than I did. haha

[ab aeterno]

They probably forgot why the NW is really important centuries, or millenia, ago. I really doubt that can account for the recent decline.

Not directly, but it becomes a vicious cycle People forget why the NW was important>NW declines>people see it as less important/prestigious>NW declines>NW has to take more and more criminals and gets fewer and fewer lords/knights>NW declines> NW gets seen in the south as largely a punishment>NW declines. At the same time, the wildlings have decided that most of them don't want to be south of the Wall because they want to live free.

There may have been other factors which helped speed it up even more, but I suspect it just reached critical mass somewhat. And also that it was convenient for GRRM and the story for the NW to have fallen into ruin.

[mimic751]

Jon snow honestly did the right thing. it just scared too many stooped people so he got the steele

[jblair]

I do wonder if Ned beheaded the NW deserter because it is the duty of ALL Lords Paramount, or if this is exclusively a Stark duty owing to their unique connection to the Wall.

[ab aeterno]

I do wonder if Ned beheaded the NW deserter because it is the duty of ALL Lords Paramount, or if this is exclusively a Stark duty owing to their unique connection to the Wall.

I believe that oathbreaking/desertion is a capital crime under all the ways of Westeros. I think that the execution was technically the duty of any lord who came upon him. Not sure if all of them could do it themselves or whether they would be obliged to bring the deserter to their liege lord though. IMO it's not specific to the North however.

[The Monkey]

If The Realm had been whole, and at peace, when the Others made their appearance, it would have been much easier to send armies to support the Night's Watch. If, say, Robert had lived for a few extra years, he could have ordered each of the major Houses to send a few thousand men each to support the Wall. Such options wouldn't have exited if Westeros had been split in seven parts; in that case The North would probably have had to take the whole burden of defending the Wall.

[tze]

The change from seven kingdoms to one I think did change the way the NW is viewed. Stannis knows his kingdom ends at the Wall but thinks it includes the Wall and the NW, and others express the same sentiment about the NW serving the Iron Throne (the Bravosi banker for one).

This, to me, is why the decline of the Watch under the unified Iron Throne makes very little sense unless there was some other factor at work. Nobody's seen the Others in thousands of years, so for thousands of years prior to the Conquest, the only actual region gaining a measurable benefit from the Watch was the North----you don't hear of wildlings ever making past incursions into the Westerlands, Vale, or Riverlands, so why would people in those regions (and every other region in Westeros) really care if raiders were invading the North? Those raiders were invading lands owing fealty to the Starks, not the Lannisters/Arryns/etc.---they were the Starks' problems at heart. So prior to the Conquest, when people from south of the Neck joined the Watch, the only place really gaining a benefit from their actions was the North, and it's easy to see instances where southern kings might not have wanted their subjects joining an order that, for all intents and purposes, was only benefiting a rival Kingdom. (After all, the stronger the Watch, the more time, men, and resources were freed up on the part of the Starks for the Starks to perhaps use to start attacking kingdoms south of the Neck, something which was difficult for them to do when the North was itself under threat of attack from north of the Wall.)

After the Conquest, the Iron Throne declared that it had dominion over all of Westeros, including the North. Much has been made of the fact that it's a king's duty to protect and defend "his" land. So the Iron Throne should logically have had way more interest in protecting and defending the North---and by extension, strengthening the Watch---than any southern king pre-Conquest. And as the Iron Throne ostensibly controlled all of Westeros, it should have had access to way more resources with which to enrich the Watch than the Starks alone could have ever managed pre-Conquest. Yet the Watch declined pretty substantially under the Iron Throne's aegis, and if the Iron Throne was really willing and capable of defending "its" land, that makes no sense. It's not as if other parts of the realm were routinely getting attacked by foreign threats----no foreign threats ever attack the western coast, there's no indication foreign powers threatened the eastern coast, and the only other border was with Dorne, which has been part of the realm for a century. So for a century, the only foreign threat to lands owing fealty to the Iron Throne has been coming from beyond the Wall---yet the Targaryens allowed the Watch to atrophy. It seems like the Iron Throne devoted itself to domestic threats (it had to keep beating down its own bannermen to ensure their fealty), but the very fact that the Iron Throne apparently couldn't (or wouldn't) do both---defend the realm from foreign incursions while simultaneously keeping its own lords in check---indicates that the Iron Throne was quite terrible for the Watch.

The OP wondered whether a unified Westeros was bad for the Watch, and I think it has been, because the Iron Throne was either unwilling or incapable of defending the lands it purported to rule. After the Conquest, the Starks and the other Northern lords suddenly had to start paying taxes to the Iron Throne, thus diminishing the amount of support and manpower they were capable of sending to hold the Wall. And the civil wars in the south---the Dance of the Dragons, the Blackfyre Rebellions, etc.---would have forced the Starks to choose between obeying the King by sending men and resources to fight in the Iron Throne's wars and disobeying the King by sending those same men/resources to protect their own border. If the Iron Throne had ever spread out the burden by having all regions of Westeros, especially the wealthier regions, shoulder at least part of the Wall's manpower/money/resource costs, then there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place, but clearly that isn't what the Iron Throne chose to do.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

tze, the others may not have attacked the Wall in force since the Long Night. But the Watch had the occasional encounter with them long after the Andal Invasion. It's proven by the reports of these encounters dug up by Sam in Feast/Dance. Reports written in the Common Tongue and Andal script.

The Andals had experience enough to consider the Others a serious threat and man the Wall. The Targs most likely didn't and the Wall got worse for it.

[Faint]

I think we have to keep in mind that, for hundred of years now, and certainly long before the Targaryens came to Westeros, the business of the Night's Watch was not considered a continental concern of much importance. Not even by the Starks themselves. Remember now, the overwhelming majority of the population of Westeros believes that the Others are a myth. If the truth was known, a unified Westeros could not but help the Night's Watch.

[tze]

tze, the others may not have attacked the Wall in force since the Long Night. But the Watch had the occasional encounter with them long after the Andal Invasion. It's proven by the reports of these encounters dug up by Sam in Feast/Dance. Reports written in the Common Tongue and Andal script.

The Andals had experience enough to consider the Others a serious threat and man the Wall. The Targs most likely didn't and the Wall got worse for it.

From my understanding, Sam wasn't reading actual firsthand Andal accounts of the Others, he was reading stories that were simply written down later by the Andals, records of events that the Andals heard stories about but did not themselves personally witness. He's reading accounts of the Long Night and the Age of Heroes, neither of which the Andals actually witnessed firsthand. He actually points out that fact to Jon---that everything they know about the Long Night and the Age of Heroes comes from accounts written down by septons thousands of years later, and there are some archmaesters who question all of it. Sam points out that the First Men only left runes on rock, which it seems nobody can read, which is why Sam is looking at second-hand stories. I don't remember any accounts of skirmishes with the Others (were there some that you saw that I didn't?) expressly noted as taking place post-Andal conquest.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

That's the spot. I read the passage as Sam differentiating between accounts (of the Long Night) written thousands of years later and annals. Annals implying being set down by the contemporary maester or septon.

I may be wrong, English isn't my first language, but that is my impression. And it would explain why the Andals manned the Wall.

[Chaircat Meow]

The OP wondered whether a unified Westeros was bad for the Watch, and I think it has been, because the Iron Throne was either unwilling or incapable of defending the lands it purported to rule. After the Conquest, the Starks and the other Northern lords suddenly had to start paying taxes to the Iron Throne, thus diminishing the amount of support and manpower they were capable of sending to hold the Wall.

What does a lord sending support and manpower entail? Yeah, they could donate gold and tax revenues to the wall, and pay for a certain number of men, but is there any evidence the watch recruits or maintains soldiers like that? They never mention having gold in the vaults, courtesy of the Starks, either now or in the pre-conquest years, and I'm not convinced that's how it ever worked.

I thought it was supported by the gift (doubled under the Targs) and manned by volunteers and impressed criminals. If that is the case, and volunteers just dry up, and the gift becomes depopulated, there is not much anyone can do, short of radically restructuring the watch. Ned did, we learn in SoS, have a plan to defend the gift, although not by giving the wall men, but by encouraging settlers to build keeps on the gift.

In any case, the decline in knights serving at the wall (the shieldhall) isn't really the responsibility of the IR, or anyone else, because you don't compel knights to go and say the vows, they just volunteer.

In addition, I think blaming the very top of the food chain, when the wall seems to depend on widespread support from all the lords, might be to unduly apportion blame.

Edit: I always thought it was pretty weird the Umbers or the mountain clans didn't arrange tours of duty for some of their fighting men on the wall, to prevent raids on their lands. Maybe there is no reason, or perhaps the watch was opposed to having men who hadn't sworn the vows defend the wall. And that brings us back to the institution itself being organized in a sub-optimal way.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

But it is the Lords (and kings) responsibility to promote the great honor of volunteering for the Black Knights of the Wall.

[Pod The Impaler]

I think the idea that it declined rapidly after the Conquest is a worthy theory.

If I were to guess at reasons or factors:

First, that the Watch takes no part. This is something that makes more sense when you have different kingdoms at war more or less constantly. None of them can demand the loyalty of the Watch. First of all, because relative to their own size, the Watch was more powerful. Even to the Kings in the North, the Watch was no small matter, though they got on well most of the time, it was not always the case. The "castles" of the Wall have no walls to protect them from the south, because of past events in history where the Watch was taken over by more nefarious sorts of leaders and sought power. The Kings in the North probably demanded this measure after that, to insure the Watch could never be a strategic threat again.

But after the Conquest, the relationship changes - the Crown now increasingly demands the loyalty of the Watch and tends to refuse the idea that the Watch has its own sort of separate neutrality & sovereignty. In the past, someone in the Watch was beyond a crown's power, but no longer, because the crown views nothing as being beyond its power. The realm the Watch guards (Westeros) is viewed by the crown as all its own, so they tend to see the Watch as just an extension of their own forces. Truthfully, it's not and never was, but it should be clear why the Crown tends to see the Watch as just another military unit, and its Lord Commanders as just another vassal begging for the Crown's resources and personnel. So, because the Watch is the least politically involved, least contentious, and least likely to press its demands by force, it gets neglected by the Crown. Basically, the mentality is very different when there is one power ruling all of Westeros.

Second, the introduction of the Seven as the "state religion" meant that the concerns of the Watch - which let's face it, is tied very much to the Old Gods - get dismissed as myths. "Grumkins and Snarks", they call it, not believing in direwolves, giants, greenseers, wargs, CotF, and The Others. This is a medieval society, where seeing (not reading about) is believing, and even the literate and well-educated tend to dismiss such things as superstition. How do people like that actually relate to the beliefs of the Wildlings, if they live somewhere where the Old Gods have no sway, and the Weirwoods have all been cut down or burned centuries or millennia ago? In the North, they still keep the Old Gods, so they are more likely going to believe it when the Watch brings them its concerns or tries to get them to understand their situation. And yet, even in the North, the supernatural factors are so remote and ancient, people have trouble believing any of it until it happens to them (yes even Starks). So, add all this up, and you get a Watch which seems to lack a spiritual justification for existing anymore.

If you want a comparison, think about the Catholic Church's orders which perform exorcisms and hunt witches - to most people today, it sounds ridiculous to have an order of priests which stands ready to combat the dangers of black magic or demonic possession. Yet if lived in a time you knew such things did exist to endanger the world, you would not think it a waste of effort or call the practicioners of it charlatans or mad fanatics.

So, the Night's Watch suffers again from basic lack of belief in their mission. The religion of the Seven believes in the threat much less to begin with, and that religious outlook dominates the Realm. Really only the Northmen might believe in it truly, or the occasional mad priest of Rhillor - and these are regarded as nutty superstitions in most of Westeros. Therefore, this is why Westeros by the time of ASOIAF sends only the disgraced and the dregs to the Wall - it is a gulag where you send unwanted people to spend their lives doing nothing of great importance. If they knew The Others existed and were rising, you think they'd leave the realm in the hands of a tiny force of misfits ?