Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Jon IV, ASOS
“In the Seven Kingdoms it was said that the Wall marked the end of the world. That is true for them as well. It was all in where you stood.”
Synopsis: Jon Snow and Ygritte climb the Wall.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
A mission beyond the Wall? Yes. Jon and co are bound for the Heart of Winter, so I see that happening.
This mission? No. The books already established that wights who go south of the Wall stop being reanimated and rot away. The show dropped that little plotline, but it’s there in the books.
Wait, hold on. Do we know this? Like, for sure?
The only instance I can think of is when Ser Alliser tried to take that hand down to King’s Landing and it rotted away. And that’s hardly dispositive; the hand was severed from the rest of the wight. It might be that if they’d contained an <em>entire</em> wight the re-animation magic would continue to work just fine. Or it might be that the Wall doesn’t mean anything, but that the wights, being dead flesh, will putrefy and rot and wither away anywhere that it is naturally above freezing.
Or is there another instance of us being told wights don’t work south of the wall I missed?
See here.
It was past the Wall, so there’s clearly some overlap. But the animated hand sent with Alliser stopped moving and rotted, so whether it’s a field effect or a recency effect or what have you, at some point, the magic fades.
And we know it’s the Wall doing this because:
“Why didn’t he come with you?” Meera gestured toward Gilly and her babe. “They came with you, why not him? Why didn’t you bring him through this Black Gate too?”
“He … he can’t.”
“Why not?”
“The Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spells woven into it … old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wall.”“You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world.” Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. “This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?”
The wights rot because the magic of the White Walkers is stopped at the Wall (with some overlap, see the Lord Commander’s Tower). If the Wall isn’t there…
I loved those last reflexions about Royce and the prologue, it encouraged me to ask you something about the wall, I just hope it’s not too stupid. I think the wildlings are said to come now and then quite easily to the south of the wall, like Mance visiting Winterfell, do they always need to climb the wall, as Jon and Ygritte did? On the other hand, I just can imagine the direwolf mother sent by 3er, avoiding the wall by the coast… Did I miss something? thank you in advance!
The wildlings have a few options: either they climb over the Wall, take the Gorge by the Bridge of Skulls which follows the Milkwater to the Bay of Ice, or take their small leather boats across the Bay of Ice or the Bay of Seals.
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