Despite the fact that Game of Thrones is over, several mysteries surrounding the show and book series are still alive and well. One of the most mysterious areas in Westeros is the Wall and its inhabitants called the Night’s Watch. The Watch take vows that indebt them to serve the Night’s Watch for their whole lives, guarding the realms of men from the Wildlings and the White Walkers that inhabit the Lands Beyond the Wall.
The deep and long history of the Night’s Watch and the Wall are so vast that one show or book series couldn’t explore all of its past and answer all of our questions sufficiently. This article will list 10 questions we still have about the Night’s Watch.
Old Nan’s Stories
Among the Game of Thrones and a Song of Ice and Fire fanbase, there is an almost universal agreement that Old Nan is always right. This raises some important questions with regard to the stories she tells about the Nightfort. While her stories of the White Walkers have been shown to be true, her other tales are more fantastical.
Old Nan tells stories of the Rat Cook, a man who served an Andal King his own son in a pie; of Symeon Star Eyes and his hellhounds; and of brave young Danny Flint.
What Was The Thing That Came At Night?
While Old Nan’s stories tend to be creepy and unnerving, one of her stories is so creepy that it deserves its own entry. The Thing That Came at Night story is remembered by Bran in a Storm of Swords and is one of the scariest stories in Martin’s fantasy series.
The story tells of a Thing That Came at Night to the Nightfort, three of the Lord Commander’s serving boys were dead within the year and a fourth went mad. The Thing is said to have returned a hundred years later, with the serving boys walking behind it in chains. Is this legend somehow tied to the White Walkers and the story of the Night’s King?
Is There A Deeper Meaning To The Vows?
The Night’s Watch vows are some of the most important words we hear in Game of Thrones and a Song of Ice and Fire. We first hear the words in a Game of Thrones, when Jon and Sam recite the vows. These vows include the promise to have no children, take no wife, and guard the realms of men.
Will the vows of the Night’s Watch bear more importance on the story? The line ’the light that brings the dawn’ has clear connections to Azor Ahai as the hero, with his sword Lightbringer, ended the Long Night and ‘brought the dawn’. Furthermore, the line ’the horn that wakes the sleepers’ has clear connections to the magical Horn of Winter, which is said to ‘wake giants in the Earth’.
How Will The Wall Fall?
In Game of Thrones season 7, the Night King destroys the Wall with Viserion’s fiery breath, allowing his army of the dead to cross into the Seven Kingdoms. That being said, there is no guarantee that this event will occur in the same way in the books.
In a Song of Ice and Fire, there are frequent references to the Horn of Winter or Joramun’s Horn. Mance Rayder is said to have pillaged countless graves to find it as the horn is said to have the power to destroy the Wall. Earlier in the series, however, Ghost discovered a bundle of rags with dragonglass and a broken old horn. Jon gave the horn to Sam and there are references to it across Sam’s appearances in later books, is this horn the legendary Horn of Winter?
What’s The Deal With The Weirwood Gate?
While this was excluded from the TV series, it has a fairly important moment in the book series. During Bran’s journey beyond the Wall, he hides out in the Nightfort with Meera, Jojen, and Hodor. Here, he meets Sam who promises to keep Bran’s secret and helps him get beyond the Wall.
The gate they take to get through the Wall, however, isn’t your typical door. It is a Weirwood gate named the Black Gate and only opens to those who recite the vows of the Night’s Watch. As it is beneath the Nightfort, we can assume that the gate has been there since the Wall was created. This raises the question, why is it there?
Who Built The Wall?
The creation of the Wall is typically credited to Bran the Builder who constructed the Wall with the help of the giants after the Long Night. However, building a wall of this size would have taken decades, even with the help of the Giants. We know the Wall is magical, so we can assume that there was magic involved in its creation.
However, what is the nature of this magic? We know that the Others use ice magic, so it wouldn’t be a wild guess to assume that the Others were involved in its creation. Perhaps even the Children of the Forest helped build the Wall as well.
Who Was The Night’s King?
Not to be confused with the TV show’s Night King, the Night’s King was the 13th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, ruling over the Nightfort shortly after the end of the first Long Night. It is said that the 13th Lord Commander took a woman with skin as pale as the moon and eyes as blue as stars as a wife, named himself the Night King, and bent the wills of his brothers to his own with dark sorcery.
He ruled the Night’s Watch for 13 years before the King of Winter, Brandon the Breaker and the King Beyond the Wall, Joramun united to put an end to his tyranny. After the Night King was defeated, his name was wiped from the records and forbidden to be spoken, which raises the question - who was the Night’s King, perhaps he was a Stark?
Why Are They Needed?
After the TV series ends, we learn that Jon Snow is being sent back to the Night’s Watch as punishment for his murder of Daenerys. This raises the question, however, of why the Night’s Watch is still necessary?
At the end of the series, the Wall is broken, the White Walkers are defeated, and the Free Folk have proven themselves to be friends rather than foe. So why is the Night’s Watch still around?
Was There A Pact Between The White Walkers And The Night’s Watch?
We’re consistently told that the White Walkers were apparently defeated during the Long Night 8 thousand years ago. However, is this really the case? An ice wall was built after the conflict between the humans and the white walkers and a creepy gate existed in the Nightfort.
The Night’s King and Craster show us that you can make deals with the White Walkers, perhaps the Long Night ended with a pact rather than a military victory. This would be similar to how the war between the Children of the Forest and the First Men ended.
Why Did Benjen Join The Night’s Watch?
One of the unanswered questions surrounding Benjen Stark is his reasons to join the Night’s Watch. It is important to remember that, while the Houses in the south believed the Night’s Watch to be a punishment, the north did not see it this way.
The north sees the Night’s Watch as an honorable vocation, even Jeor Mormont left his house to serve on the Wall. While Benjen may have seen the Watch as an honorable vocation, this doesn’t necessarily mean it was the direct cause of his decision to sign up. Perhaps this will be revealed in the book series.
