Based off a long conversation from Twitter, but I’ve started to have some ideas about the Horn of Joramun, one of the more significant objects in the series if assumptions are right that it will bring down the Wall.
The Horn is a curious object, because it seems to have a strong duality about it: it’s known as both the Horn of Winter and the Horn of Joramun, and it is supposed to have "woke giants from the earth” and it’s also supposed to have the power “bring this cold thing down.” And yet, even through Joramun was a King Beyond-the-Wall “in ancient days,” whom Jeor Mormont places as coming before the Horned Lord and the brothers Gendel and Gorne, and describes all of them as having “broke his strength on the Wall, or was broken by the power of Winterfell on the far side,” the Wall still stands.
Why did Joramun never use the Horn to bring down the Wall?
Seems legit…and the Giants being bound inside the Wall as imprisoned slaves and human batteries is a rather dark look at the legend and magic of Bran the Builder, and it does prove, in contemporary parlance that the Wildlings were right, Bran the Builder was a jackass.
And you have the human sacrifice theme which is the biggest connective thread of the series.
It’s possible the theme is to what lengths people were willing to go in the Long Night to preserve any form of warm-blooded life. Or it’s possible they’re willing sacrifices, that’s another theme of the series.
RFTIT Tumblr Backup 