Small questions Thread

Why did Lord Commander Mormont join the Night's Watch?

Nope, Jeor had joined the Night's Watch before Jorah shamed the family. Jeor had already been elected Lord Commander when Maege sent Longclaw back to him. And then there's this passage:



Ergo, Jeor joined before Jorah shamed himself.

Maybe he wanted to do his duty. Kind of like joining the army. I've wondered as well. I guess he didn't want to get remarried, and figured he had an heir. 

A little plot hole that bothers me is when Arya, Hot Pie, and Gendry escape Harrenhal on horseback. I doubt Hot Pie ever rode before the donkey with Yoren, maybe Gendry a little, and I doubt they'd of been able to outrun the Boltons... I know, I know, but it still bugs me.

I once read a theory by Bran Vras that her eyes changed from gray to blue to due the Horn of Winter being blown by Mance twice while in Winterfell. 

branvras.free.fr/HuisClos/Horn.html
This is the section. It is a little long but very interesting at least to me.

11. Della and Val
Val and Tormund led the Free Folk to the Wall. Val seems to have changed at her return. She seemed wilder, and took an interest in Craster's son that didn't seem to exist when she left. And the colors of her eyes has changed from grey to blue. Has the sounding of the horn changed Val somehow? (The magical transformation into blue eye is part the nature of the Others and their creatures, the wights.) I don't think Val's eye color change is meaningless or a mistake. There is much attention given to eye color in the story: Jeyne Poole' brown eyes, Young Griff's varying eye colors etc. Something has happened to Val.

If two horn blowings changed her eye color to an apparently natural blue, would a third blast make of her a creature like the queen of Night's King?

Before she left the Wall, Val made the following recommendation to Jon Snow.

“Do you remember what my sister told you?”

“Yes.” A sword without a hilt, with no safe way to hold it. But Melisandre had the right of it. Even a sword without a hilt is better than an empty hand when foes are all around you.

“Good.”

(Jon IX, ADwD)

It is not clear that Jon Snow remembered the right sentence. Here is the totality of what Dalla told Jon (five sentences in two parts).

“We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.”

(Jon X, ASoS)

Who was the Horned Lord? We know that he came after Joramun as King-beyong-the-Wall. Is his Horned nature related to the Horn of Winter? But a moment later, when Mance speaks of blowing the Horn, Dalla said her fifth sentence.

“But once the Wall is fallen,” Dalla said, “what will stop the Others?”
(Jon X, ASoS)

Dalla seems to be saying that the Horn of Joramun is the sword without a hilt, and that using it would risk breaking the Wall, and perhaps would unleash another undesirable effect. How is it that she knows so much about it? She seems more knowledgeable than Mance under all appearances.
In any case,

Melisandre confirmed Dalla's opinion.

“The Horn of Joramun?” Melisandre said. “No. Call it the Horn of Darkness. If the Wall falls, night falls as well, the long night that never ends. It must not happen, will not happen! The Lord of Light has seen his children in their peril and sent a champion to them, Azor Ahai reborn.”

(Jon III, ADwD)

When she came back to the Wall, Val seems to have inherited Dalla's status among the Free Folk.

They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well ... but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

(Jon XI, ADwD)

Indeed, she said a moment later.
These clothes were given to me by Dalla, I would sooner not get bloodstains all over them.
(Jon XI, ADwD)
Dalla's status was undoubtable. She was welcome to every council of Mance, even to those from which Tormund was excluded. Val confirmed her importance indirectly.

“A giant as protector? Even Dalla could not boast of that.”

(Jon XI, ADwD)

Of course that might simply refer to Dalla as Mance's queen. Recall that Stannis has crowned Val at the Wall. It seems that Stannis had understood or learned something about Val's nature that has escaped Jon Snow.

A most interesting piece of Val's equipment is the piece of carved weirwood that clasps her cloak. According to the social conventions of the Seven Kingdoms, it is a heraldic sign (there are dozens of examples of highborn people carrying their sigil as a brooch). The weirwood face appears as a heraldic sign in only one other occasion: when the Knight of the Laughing Tree (probably Lyanna Stark) came to the jousting field during the Harrenhal tourney. Then the knight was an envoy of the old gods, as her appearance was an answer to a prayer of Howland Reed.

“Then, as now,” she agreed. “The wolf maid saw them too, and pointed them out to her brothers. ‘I could find you a horse, and some armor that might fit’, the pup offered. The little crannogman thanked him, but gave no answer. His heart was torn. Crannogmen are smaller than most, but just as proud. The lad was no knight, no more than any of his people. We sit a boat more often than a horse, and our hands are made for oars, not lances. Much as he wished to have his vengeance, he feared he would only make a fool of himself and shame his people. The quiet wolf had offered the little crannogman a place in his tent that night, but before he slept he knelt on the lakeshore, looking across the water to where the Isle of Faces would be, and said a prayer to the old gods of north and Neck...”

(Bran II, ASoS)

And here is the knight.
“No one knew,” said Meera, “but the mystery knight was short of stature, and clad in ill-fitting armor made up of bits and pieces. The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face.”
“Maybe he came from the Isle of Faces,” said Bran. “Was he green?” In Old Nan’s stories, the guardians had dark green skin and leaves instead of hair. Sometimes they had antlers too, but Bran didn’t see how the mystery knight could have worn a helm if he had antlers. “I bet the old gods sent him.”
(Bran II, ASoS)

Did Val come with the benediction of the old gods?
In any case, Val promised to return to the Wall at the full moon. The full moon is also the moment of the arrival of Winter in King's Landing (white raven). Melisandre claims a few days later that Winter is almost upon us, referring maybe to the arrival of the white raven from Oldtown. Hence, the arrival of Winter could coincide with Val's arrival at the Wall, which, in turn, seems to coincide with the sounding of the Horn at Winterfell. Take or leave a couple of days.

They all died in Robert's Rebellion

My answer was specifically to what happened to her sons, as Lady Whent it seems died sometime after her escape (not unimaginable considering she was running away in war-torn country and old). Though it's not confirmed whether she did or not, so there's always the possibility that she might appear unexpectedly later on in the story, though I doubt it.