Heresy 32

[Black Crow]

Maybe the answer to "who built the Wall" is as simple as No One Did.

We have from Mel that the Wall is "a hinge of the world"... what if the reason for the Wall being there is simply because it's a magical hinge between realms, kind of a lay line type of thing, and that, over time (especially with long, long winters with unfathomable amounts of snow), a hoarfrost grasped onto this magical boundary (maybe during The Long Night it became so cold that even magical barriers/boundaries were able to freeze over?) and, instead of melting after the Winter, the magical properties inherent in the frozen barrier caused the snow/ice to attach to it and largely remain there, only coming off slowly and intermittently

Maybe the answer to "who built the Wall" is as simple as No One Did.

We have from Mel that the Wall is "a hinge of the world"... what if the reason for the Wall being there is simply because it's a magical hinge between realms, kind of a lay line type of thing, and that, over time (especially with long, long winters with unfathomable amounts of snow), a hoarfrost grasped onto this magical boundary (maybe during The Long Night it became so cold that even magical barriers/boundaries were able to freeze over?) and, instead of melting after the Winter, the magical properties inherent in the frozen barrier caused the snow/ice to attach to it and largely remain there, only coming off slowly and intermittently

Yes, we have looked at this before of course and it would also be consistent both with it being there forever, with the lack of integral castles and the gate between the realms from the very beginning.

[Runaway Penguin]

He has indeed, but even allowing for a reduction by half, that's still way too big for humans, even with the help of giants, to accomplish. Leaving aside all the excellent reasons given by UnCat, there's also the matter of hoisting blocks of ice all that way up along a front of 300 miles. Barrels of gravel are bad enough, and as I also said there's the not inconsiderable matter of the likely human cost of building something like this - remember the stories of the building of Harrenhal - and big though it is, its not a patch on the Wall, its built from stone and it was built in a temperate climate. Yet no such stories attach to the building of the Wall.

In fact all that we do know about the building of the Wall is that legend says (very unreliably according to GRRM) that it was Bran the Builder who did it, and its this absolute lack of any tradition far less knowledge which makes me wonder...

Well I already devised a way how it could be built using ancient technology (aqueducts, reservoirs, pumps), especially if you have giants and their mammoths to power the pumps ;) Pykrete is your friend. Lower thermal conductivity than normal ice, tougher ("ice concrete"), melts slower... And sufficiently advanced so that the results appear to be magic after millenia ;)

A little bit of magic won't hurt, but however you do it, it is gonna cost numerous lives - workers or sacrifices, pick your poison. And after near extinction level event (Long Night), noone would care too much about what it takes to defend against its return. And since there are no written histories from that time in Westeros... You have millenia to build the wall up and to spread out the lives lost, especially if you do NOT employ methods the master of Harrenhal used.

Panama canal cost on average 560 lives per year and that was mostly due to tropical ilnesses. While cold climate brings its own risks, as long as you provide ample shelter and warmth they should be significantly less.

[Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik]

He has indeed, but even allowing for a reduction by half, that's still way too big for humans, even with the help of giants, to accomplish.

This is quite the bold statement, because we don't know what is too big to build in this world for humans or even what giants are capable of.

I'm not even opposed to the magical explanation or that it might have always been there, but I think the evidence put forth for why it 'has' to be at this point is some of the weakest in the entire heresies series.

[Uncat]

I'm not sure about "a part of Sansa died with Lady" I think a part of Lady went into Sansa when Lady died from their close bond... maybe Lady's second life. I think the connection with the direwolves goes far beyond any other animal, it seems more a soulmate type bond the way they 'feel' eachother emotions as you have already pointed out. We do see Sansa have brutal impulses after Lady dies and it could be the direwolf's influence like when Sansa wanted to shove Joffery off the ramparts or when she said Robb would bring her Joff's head. Of course Sansa has good reason to lash out and those reasons are less crackpot but I still find it out of character for her and personaly I really want Lady to still be a part of Sansa! :)

Indeed, the loss of lady seems to be crucial in some way. It severs Sansas direct and visible link to the North. It severs her dreams about knighthood, galantery and the ways she imagined a lady's life should be. From that point on, Sansa is lost. She only gets back on track on that morning on the Eyrie, when she rebuilds Winterfell and eats the snowflake. That is, where (now that are my five cents) the future Queen of Winter is born and maybe that part of Lady, which went into her, awakens.

Maybe the answer to "who built the Wall" is as simple as No One Did.

We have from Mel that the Wall is "a hinge of the world"... what if the reason for the Wall being there is simply because it's a magical hinge between realms, kind of a lay line type of thing, and that, over time (especially with long, long winters with unfathomable amounts of snow), a hoarfrost grasped onto this magical boundary (maybe during The Long Night it became so cold that even magical barriers/boundaries were able to freeze over?) and, instead of melting after the Winter, the magical properties inherent in the frozen barrier caused the snow/ice to attach to it and largely remain there, only coming off slowly and intermittently

Yepp, I had that thought, too, many Heresies ago. If the Wall is so similar to a glacier, than maybe it actually is one. It is just the snow that acummulated on that magical borderline over the milenia, pressed into ice and never melting away. What first gave me that thought was, that Jon still sees some kind of layers (which he interpretes as the block from which the Wall was build according to the legends) and the way, the show shows the Wall.

@Wun Wun The fact, that GRRM says that he might have made the Wall to tall contains a hint for us (or at least I take it as such): He did not stop to think about how the Wall was made. Because if he had, he would have had a reason for why it has the height, that it has. It rather looks like he just wanted a mindnumbingly high Wall without really bothering about how it really came to be. In other words. It does not matter for the story, how the Wall came to be. All that matter is, that it is there and always has been.

[Little Wing]

I rather liked the idea that before it was a Wall it was an invisible ward, "force field" and that the ice simply accumulated on it over time and numerous winters/long nights. Maybe in the times of Bran the Builder they simply decided to add to it as much as they can to make it stronger or what have you :dunno: as you guys speculated before - why would it stop Others from going through if it's made of ice and Others are ice incarnate? The ice may be an outer shell formed by the elements alone, but the magic ward is the repellent. I wonder if the Others passed the ward when the Long Night occurred because the Children um, "neutralized" it for a while so they could pass?

[Runaway Penguin]

Or the ice is a "strongbox", a tough physical barrier surrounding fragile magical core.

[Alpehue]

Indeed, when I referred to a bond, I didn't mean a happy bond. Bound might have been a better word, with Varamyr able to to control in the sense of "come", "follow me" or whatever, as distinct from actually sitting inside at the controls. Perhaps a sort of hypnotism or auto-suggestion from within - a sort of when I leave, this is what you must do...

Which appears to be what's happening with the Wights. I don't think they're actively warged, but; "when you wake up you will..." Remember how in Varamyr's true death experience he seemed to be "in" everything he passed.

As to the sleeping business I think its pretty straightforward. The warg is leaving the body and there's nobody home - bit like the last days of Khal Drogo - so any lengthy excursions would sensibly require the body to be left somewhere safe and cosy, otherwise I'd imagine for briefer excursions like Arya warging into the cat, the body would simply stop with a quite literally vacant look on its face.

I read it as she was able to see what the cat saw, while she still had control of her own body..

[Black Crow]

This is quite the bold statement, because we don't know what is too big to build in this world for humans or even what giants are capable of.

I'm not even opposed to the magical explanation or that it might have always been there, but I think the evidence put forth for why it 'has' to be at this point is some of the weakest in the entire heresies series.

The point is not so much that "it can't be built", although I think UnCat's analysis is the most thorough so far, but rather that you can't undertake anything remotely like that without leaving an equally huge historical footprint.

Comparatively speaking we know a lot about the Dawn Age, how the Children fought and how the Pact was made; we know about the Long Night and how the Others/Sidhe stravaighed across the land, hunting maidens through the woods and all the other things the Wild hunt traditonally gets up to; we know of the Seven Kingdoms, Nymeria, the coming of the Andals and more, but of the Wall, nothing.

We have a legend it was raised by Bran the Builder, which GRRM has very explicitly warned us is just a legend, and we don't even know if he actually existed. We have no stories of when the wall was built, no stories of the aqueducts, elephants, giants, jugglers, clowns, and all the tens of thousands of ordinary workers in the circus - far less the thousands who died in building it. We know nothing of the battles fought by the Watch (?) to protect the building of the Wall, or why, during all those years of building it the Wildlings didn't come in out of the cold. Nothing.

That's why I'm coming round so firmly to the belief that no-one knows who built it or how, which in turn suggests it has always been there; a magical hinge and that the legend of Bran the builder is just an attempt to explain what no-one knows.

ETA: spelling

[Black Crow]

I read it as she was able to see what the cat saw, while she still had control of her own body..

Yes, thinking about there was a point in the Winterfell crypts where Bran was asked whether it was all clear outside and when he concentrated he was able to see both what was in front of him in the crypt and through Summer's eyes what was going on in the courtyard

[Ser Leftwich]

I guess I missed that the Maesters originated from the First Men. I thought since they studied at the Citadel that they originated with Andals? The Septons are different in that they are religious scholars.

Feather,

Here is a link to a thread about the Maester history theory. Originally in Heresy, I put it out to the main forum.

[Uncat]

I rather liked the idea that before it was a Wall it was an invisible ward, "force field" and that the ice simply accumulated on it over time and numerous winters/long nights. Maybe in the times of Bran the Builder they simply decided to add to it as much as they can to make it stronger or what have you :dunno: as you guys speculated before - why would it stop Others from going through if it's made of ice and Others are ice incarnate? The ice may be an outer shell formed by the elements alone, but the magic ward is the repellent. I wonder if the Others passed the ward when the Long Night occurred because the Children um, "neutralized" it for a while so they could pass?

Well, this is thing, that has been haunting us for many Heresies. Can't the White Walker cross the Wall or did they just choose to not cross it since the Long Night (at least not in numbers).

We are told, that the WW can't cross. But the only proof is, that they havn't done it for ages. What if people just assume, they can't cross, because they did not do it.

I don't know the answere. But this is a possibility, that we need to keep our minds wide open for, because this would be a game changer.

[Melifeather]

Would you agree that history is written by the victors? The history taught to children is what the authorities want taught, and anything that would portray the authorities in a negative light is either downplayed or completely erased. It's only recently now taught that Columbus didn't discovered America. And the story of Major General Custer's last stand at Little Bighorn was once grievously skewed to portray the Native American's as savages, leaving out the nasty bits about how these native peoples had been forced from their lands onto federal reservations that were the least arable and most undesirable lands that could not support their previous way of life. This type of skewed history has been applied to the Wall. Why would it's true origin be commonly known if it wasn't created under the most noble of causes? The much more politically correct version that it was a heroic barrier to hold the dreaded Others at bay is easier to swallow and a better tale to tell than if the Wall was basically a concentration camp for prisoners.

[Uncat]

Well I already devised a way how it could be built using ancient technology (aqueducts, reservoirs, pumps), especially if you have giants and their mammoths to power the pumps ;) Pykrete is your friend. Lower thermal conductivity than normal ice, tougher ("ice concrete"), melts slower... And sufficiently advanced so that the results appear to be magic after millenia ;)

A little bit of magic won't hurt, but however you do it, it is gonna cost numerous lives - workers or sacrifices, pick your poison. And after near extinction level event (Long Night), noone would care too much about what it takes to defend against its return. And since there are no written histories from that time in Westeros... You have millenia to build the wall up and to spread out the lives lost, especially if you do NOT employ methods the master of Harrenhal used.

Panama canal cost on average 560 lives per year and that was mostly due to tropical ilnesses. While cold climate brings its own risks, as long as you provide ample shelter and warmth they should be significantly less.

I like the idea, but I can turn it around. Actually the Watch would desperatly need a working and winterproof system of aquaeducts, pipes and pumps and cranes to maintain the Wall. That system would need to strech along the whole length of it, with powerfull pumps or cranes every few miles and a system of artificial reservoires covering at least each castles. But we are not told about it and we are not shown it, working and mantaining it would be the main preocupation of the builders.

[Melifeather]

House Hightower was integral in the founding of the Citadel and of the Maesters. The Hightowers were here before the Andal invasion, but they allied themselves with the newcomers and thus were able to maintain their holdings. They later allied with the invading Targaryens as well. Both times allowed them to keep their wealth.

With this information in mind, you cannot claim that the Maesters are First Men in origin. The Citadel was established during the time of Andals, and a maester is a scholarly position, not a religious one. That they've adopted the use of ravens and kept a weirwood tree does not necessarily mean that they are aligned with First Men, but rather that they wanted to retain that knowledge for their own use and purposes.

[Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik]

The point is not so much that "it can't be built", although I think UnCat's analysis is the most thorough so far, but rather that you can't undertake anything remotely like that without leaving an equally huge historical footprint.

Comparatively speaking we know a lot about the Dawn Age, how the Children fought and how the Pact was made; we know about the Long Night and how the Others/Sidhe stravaighed across the land, hunting maidens through the woods and all the other things the Wild hunt traditonally gets up to; we know of the Seven Kingdoms, Nymeria, the coming of the Andals and more, but of the Wall, nothing.

We have a legend it was raised by Bran the Builder, which GRRM has very explicitly warned us is just a legend, and we don't even know if he actually existed. We have no stories of when the wall was built, no stories of the aqueducts, elephants, giants, jugglers, clowns, and all the tens of thousands of ordinary workers in the circus - far less the thousands who died in building it. We know nothing of the battles fought by the Watch (?) to protect the building of the Wall, or why, during all those years of building it the Wildlings didn't come in out of the cold. Nothing.

I would disagree that we know alot about the dawn age. We know that there was a war, and that ended with peace, and then another race showed up, and then that ended. We don't have definitive dates for anything. Especially things that are actually built. Not Storms End, not Winterfell, and Certainly not the wall.

Let's say that the wall was built by giants though. After thousands of years who would remember the plight of a race that is nearly extinct, banished to the other side of giant structure, that speak a different language entirely, and are generally considered to be evil in the stories? Oh yeah, and only exist south of the wall in Myth. Jon was certainly surprised to see them.

Runes on rocks are a very very poor way to archive construction logs. Anyways, enough with the naysaying on my part. I'm not convinced. Everyone else is, I'll drop it :)

[Runaway Penguin]

I like the idea, but I can turn it around. Actually the Watch would desperatly need a working and winterproof system of aquaeducts, pipes and pumps and cranes to maintain the Wall. That system would need to strech along the whole length of it, with powerfull pumps or cranes every few miles and a system of artificial reservoires covering at least each castles. But we are not told about it and we are not shown it, working and mantaining it would be the main preocupation of the builders.

Actually... You need not "winterproof" system. Heck, you have thousands of years, you can use autumn to get water to place before temperatures drop too low. Again, the aqueduct can easily use wooden construction - long decayed already probably, or maybe even hidden inside the wall. If we go primitive, you need just a tall hill for "central reservoir" and then use gravitation to get the water hundreds of miles away... It is feasible.

As for historical reports, we have written reports from Egypt, yet there is a bunch of different theories how the pyramids were built. In Britain, only the most educated knew (at around 1000's) that the roads and Hadrian's Wall etc... were built by "Romans" and that Romans were people, folks tended to attribute them to giants etc. - and that was just after "few centuries", during which at least bits of paperwork persisted.

[Melifeather]

Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik...I certainly am not convinced either. Like I just posted a little while ago, the victors get to write history the way that they want it portrayed. How do you think the Nazi's might have written history if they had won? Do you suppose we would have ever learned about the extermination camps?

[Black Crow]

Letting the winners write history is one thing, but this notion of an Andal-built Wall completely ignores both commonsense (the size and magic of the Wall) and the total absense of a footprint. There is absolutely no evidence as to when the Wall was built, how the Wall was built, or who built it, beyond the dodgy legend of Bran the Bran the Builder. This is suspicious enough when we're talking about a supposed date of 8,000 years ago, but quite untenable when its only a couple of thousand years ago tops:

Oh, and he did mention that he put lots of legends into the books such as Bran the Builder. Bran the builder is supposed to have built the Wall, Winterfel, and Storms End. GRRM mentioned that he has become a legend so that people will look at a structure and say "wow, it must have been built by Bran the Builder" when it actually was not. This is GRRM's attemt on creating a world with myths and legends so if at some point you see, "They say it was built by Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever" realize that its part of the mythos.

If time is permiting would you mind giving a brief description on how the wall was constructed?

Much of those details are lost in the mists of time and legend. No one can even say for certain if Brandon the Builder ever lived. He is as remote from the time of the novels as Noah and Gilgamesh are from our own time.

This is GRRM himself very definitely not describing something thrown up by the Andals while nobody was looking. Details "lost in the mists of time" may be a way of avoiding awkward technical questions, but that only works if its as old - or even older than advertised - NOT when its erected by the Andals in historical times.

It is, as Mel says, a magical hinge.

[Toccs]

That's why I'm coming round so firmly to the belief that no-one knows who built it or how, which in turn suggests it has always been there; a magical hinge and that the legend of Bran the builder is just an attempt to explain what no-one knows.

I'm still not sold on it always being there. We know that the First Men had kingdoms beyond the Wall. If the giant magical ice wall had been there when they arrived, then surely it would have impeded progress.

The fact that the legends say that the Wall was "built" makes me think that there is a very faint culutral memory that the Wall "Went up" at some stage after men were present in Westeros.

[Uncat]

Actually... You need not "winterproof" system. Heck, you have thousands of years, you can use autumn to get water to place before temperatures drop too low. Again, the aqueduct can easily use wooden construction - long decayed already probably, or maybe even hidden inside the wall. If we go primitive, you need just a tall hill for "central reservoir" and then use gravitation to get the water hundreds of miles away... It is feasible.

As for historical reports, we have written reports from Egypt, yet there is a bunch of different theories how the pyramids were built. In Britain, only the most educated knew (at around 1000's) that the roads and Hadrian's Wall etc... were built by "Romans" and that Romans were people, folks tended to attribute them to giants etc. - and that was just after "few centuries", during which at least bits of paperwork persisted.

I know. My point was rather, that you would still need a lot of water logistic to maintain a hundred leagues of Wall a we se no trace of it.

But I'll stop it here, because after banging my head for a long time against that Wall, Black Crow has set me free. It does not matter, who buil it. GRRM does not know, who build it and how. As far as the story is concerned, it is just there.

The much more important question is: Is it just a borderline like mountains would be (a little harder to overcome and that is it). Or is it a real barrier, which really has the properties attributed to it. I.e. Does it keep of the White Walkers or do they just not cross?