Post by voice on Nov 4, 2015 7:59:09 GMT
Mojo and others will be shocked to learn that I recently decided to reread A Game of Thrones from the Beginning for the n'th time. Anyway, I have also been using the World Book to help with my insomnia. The two have cross-mojinated to give me a bit of an epiphany.
Folks familiar with my "essays" know that I prefer to stay away from interpretative analysis and focus on cold, hard, canon. My pet theories have been called hair-splitting, and semantic. I'm guilty as charged! LOL
This theory is along that vein, but nonetheless, I think it is interpretive and un-semantic enough to actually be called a theory. So here it is.
A Game of Thrones - Bran I
The riders picked their way carefully through the drifts, groping for solid footing on the hidden, uneven ground. Jory Cassel and Theon Greyjoy were the first to reach the boys. Greyjoy was laughing and joking as he rode. Bran heard the breath go out of him. “Gods!” he exclaimed, struggling to keep control of his horse as he reached for his sword.
Jory’s sword was already out. “Robb, get away from it!” he called as his horse reared under him.
Robb grinned and looked up from the bundle in his arms. “She can’t hurt you,” he said. “She’s dead, Jory.”
Bran was afire with curiosity by then. He would have spurred the pony faster, but his father made them dismount beside the bridge and approach on foot. Bran jumped off and ran.
By then Jon, Jory, and Theon Greyjoy had all dismounted as well. “What in the seven hells is it?” Greyjoy was saying.
“A wolf,” Robb told him. “A freak,” Greyjoy said. “Look at the size of it.” Bran’s heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his brothers’ side.
Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman's perfume. Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father's kennel.
"It's no freak," Jon said calmly. "That's a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind."
Theon Greyjoy said, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years."
"I see one now," Jon replied.
I'd like to point out several things from this passage before getting to my theory. One, notice how quickly Greyjoy (Gloomy joy?...Stark Joy?) goes from jocular to exclamatory in the sight of what he names as "Gods," however freakish.
Also, notice that Jory, guardian of the house, has bare steel.
Bran is afire - like a burning (summer?) tree.
Ned is neither confrontational/defensive (Jory), or jovial (Theon before seeing them, Robb after), and is instead the very soul of Starkly lordship, cautious and careful, knowingly making his son dismount before approaching on foot.
Ned is brooding like a weirwood, Bran is afire like Summer, Robb is proud like Grey Wind, and Jory is combative. Each of these traits have parallels to Lord Ellard Stark (nope, that's not a typo), and are in stark contrast with the reaction of Theon, who is the sole outsider. Theon Greyjoy is aghast, sobered, and perplexed (“What in the seven hells is it?”). Mayhaps, just mayhaps, Theon is not unlike the "Good" Queen Alysanne (GQA) in this regard. It is my belief that GQA began to understand the source of Northern Strength that fed the Wall, the Night's Watch, and House Stark.
The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Jaehaerys I
Though young to the throne, Jaehaerys revealed himself from an early age to be a true king. He was a fine warrior, skilled with lance and bow, and a gifted horseman. He was a dragonrider as well, riding upon Vermithor—a great beast of bronze and tan who was the largest of the living dragons after Balerion and Vhagar. Decisive in thought and deed, Jaehaerys was wise beyond his years, always seeking the most peaceable ends.
His queen, Alysanne, was also well loved throughout the realm, being both beautiful and high-spirited, as well as charming and keenly intelligent. Some said that she ruled the realm as much as the king did, and there was some truth to that. It was at her behest that King Jaehaerys at last forbade the right of the First Night, despite the many lords who jealously guarded it. And the Night's Watch came to rename the castle of Snowgate in her honor, dubbing it Queensgate instead. They did this in thanks for the treasure in jewels she gave them to pay for the construction of a new castle, Deep Lake, to replace the huge and ruinously costly Nightfort, and for her role in winning them the New Gift that bolstered their flagging strength.
Yes, Arya, the woman is important too.
Imagine Cersei with Tyrion's brains, and Dany's blood. That's how I picture GQA. I recently speculated in the Vows of the Night's Watch thread that GQA, like many Targs, may have been prone to visions and prophetic dreams. I think GQA saw something in her dreams (at Winterfell?) that made her initiate the visit to the Wall and leave Jaehaerys behind with Lord Stark. And, I believe the relocation of the Night's Watch from the Nightfort to Deep Lake, then later to Castle Black, was for magical reasons, rather than fiscal. But, such is mere conjecture of course. Let's get back to text...
A Storm of Swords - Bran III
"Who holds this land?" Jojen asked Bran.
"The Night's Watch," he answered. "This is the Gift. The New Gift, and north of that Brandon's Gift." Maester Luwin had taught him the history. "Brandon the Builder gave all the land south of the Wall to the black brothers, to a distance of twenty-five leagues. For their . . . for their sustenance and support." He was proud that he still remembered that part. "Some maesters say it was some other Brandon, not the Builder, but it's still Brandon's Gift. Thousands of years later, Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon Silverwing, and she thought the Night's Watch was so brave that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty leagues. So that was the New Gift." He waved a hand. "Here. All this."
No one had lived in the village for long years, Bran could see. All the houses were falling down. Even the inn. It had never been much of an inn, to look at it, but now all that remained was a stone chimney and two cracked walls, set amongst a dozen apple trees. One was growing up through the common room, where a layer of wet brown leaves and rotting apples carpeted the floor. The air was thick with the smell of them, a cloying cidery scent that was almost overwhelming. Meera stabbed a few apples with her frog spear, trying to find some still good enough to eat, but they were all too brown and wormy.
Interestingly, the very next chapter of ASoS is Jon V, and Bran's Gift and the failure of GQA's New Gift are mentioned again:
A Storm of Swords - Jon V
His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. "It is a dream for spring, though," Lord Eddard had said. "Even the promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming on."
If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers in my father's name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be forged. "This land belongs to the Watch," Jon said.
So, we learn in this passage that while GQA doubled the Gift, she did not man it, or allot it to any men to tend/defend it. Thus, she alienated the Watch from Northemen by a distance of 25 leagues (~75 miles), and doubled the size of land the Night's Watch needed to tend and defend, without men to tend and defend it. And, we also learn in this passage that, like their ancestor before them, Eddard and Benjen sought to undo GQA's generosity.
It seems the doubling of the Gift did not bring about GQA's intended consequence as a friend to the Watch. ...Or did it?
Bran learned of this transaction not from his father, but from Maester Luwin. The Citadel, we later learn in the World Book, was complicit in the redistribution of the land seized in GQA's New Gift, much to the dismay of House Stark. What is quite interesting about House Stark's protest though, is that Ellard Stark seems to have predicted that the doubling of the Gift would distract the Night's Watch, rather than strengthen them:
The World of Ice and Fire - The North: The Lords of Winterfell
Later still, it was said that the Starks were bitter at the Old King and Queen Alysanne for having forced them to carve away the New Gift and give it the Night's Watch; this may be one reason for why Lord Ellard Stark sided with Corlys Velaryon and Princess Rhaenys at the Great Council of 101 AC.
We have earlier discussed House Stark's role in the Dance of the Dragons. Let it be added that Lord Cregan Stark reaped many rewards for his loyal support of King Aegon III...even if it was not a royal princess marrying into his family, as had been agreed in the Pact of Ice and Fire made when the doomed prince Jacaerys Velaryon had flown to Winterfell upon his dragon.
Though in these days it is said that Lord Ellard Stark was glad to aid the Night's Watch with the Gift, and took little convincing, the truth is otherwise. Letters from Lord Stark's brother to the Citadel, asking the maesters to provide precedents against the forced donation of property, made it plain that the Starks were not eager to do as King Jaehaerys bid. It may be that the Starks feared that, under the control of the Castle Black, the New Gift would inevitably decline—for the Night's Watch would always look northward and never give much thought to their new tenants to the south. And as it happens, that soon came to pass, and the New Gift is now said to be largely unpopulated thanks to the decline of the Watch and the rising toll taken by raiders from beyond the Wall.
After the Dance of the Dragons, the Starks were more overtly loyal to the Targaryens than previously. Indeed, Lord Cregan Stark's son and heir fought beneath the Targaryen banner when the Young Dragon sought to conquer Dorne. Rickon Stark fought bravely, his deeds sometimes reported by King Daeron in his Conquest of Dorne, and Rickon's death outside of Sunspear in one of the final battles was lamented in the North for years to come because of the troubles that dogged the reigns of his half brothers.
Okay, so the doubling of the Gift started the Night's Watch on a road to ruin. So what? Who cares about this stuff?
The answer is Jon, and anyone who might enjoy their blood unfrozen.
A Storm of Swords - Jon XI
King Stannis gazed off north again, his gold cloak streaming from his shoulders. "It may be that I am mistaken in you, Jon Snow. We both know the things that are said of bastards. You may lack your father's honor, or your brother's skill in arms. But you are the weapon the Lord has given me. I have found you here, as you found the cache of dragonglass beneath the Fist, and I mean to make use of you. Even Azor Ahai did not win his war alone. I killed a thousand wildlings, took another thousand captive, and scattered the rest, but we both know they will return. Melisandre has seen that in her fires. This Tormund Thunderfist is likely re-forming them even now, and planning some new assault. And the more we bleed each other, the weaker we shall all be when the real enemy falls upon us."
Jon had come to that same realization. "As you say, Your Grace." He wondered where this king, was going.
"Whilst your brothers have been struggling to decide who shall lead them, I have been speaking with this Mance Rayder." He ground his teeth. "A stubborn man, that one, and prideful. He will leave me no choice but to give him to the flames. But we took other captives as well, other leaders. The one who calls himself the Lord of Bones, some of their clan chiefs, the new Magnar of Thenn. Your brothers will not like it, no more than your father's lords, but I mean to allow the wildlings through the Wall . . . those who will swear me their fealty, pledge to keep the king's peace and the king's laws, and take the Lord of Light as their god. Even the giants, if those great knees of theirs can bend. I will settle them on the Gift, once I have wrested it away from your new Lord Commander. When the cold winds rise, we shall live or die together. It is time we made alliance against our common foe." He looked at Jon. "Would you agree?"
"My father dreamed of resettling the Gift," Jon admitted. "He and my uncle Benjen used to talk of it." He never thought of settling it with wildlings, though . . . but he never rode with wildlings, either. He did not fool himself; the free folk would make for unruly subjects and dangerous neighbors. Yet when he weighed Ygritte's red hair against the cold blue eyes of the wights, the choice was easy. "I agree."
The Starks of old wanted what Stannis wants, the Night's Watch focused on their true enemy. Once GQA took the shield that guards the realms of men and turned it into a property management company, the Night's Watch became obsessed with wildling raiders out to steal from their southron land holdings. As Bran learned from Maester Luwin, the original Gift from his namesake was merely enough land for their . . .
"Sustenance and support" means enough land from which the Night's Watch could make a living, protected from Northmen who might hunt and farm it, and, wisest of all, it was not so much as to remake them into landlords.
Now, back to Ygritte's red hair. It is no secret I have a weakness for redheads, and it may be that kissed-by-fire wildling woman gave us GQA's motive. After all, she's lucky...
A Storm of Swords - Jon V
Across the lake, the tower was black again, a dim shape dimly seen. "A queen lived there?" asked Ygritte.
"A queen stayed there for a night." Old Nan had told him the story, but Maester Luwin had confirmed most of it. "Alysanne, the wife of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator. He's called the Old King because he reigned so long, but he was young when he first came to the Iron Throne. In those days, it was his wont to travel all over the realm. When he came to Winterfell, he brought his queen, six dragons, and half his court. The king had matters to discuss with his Warden of the North, and Alysanne grew bored, so she mounted her dragon Silverwing and flew north to see the Wall. This village was one of the places where she stopped. Afterward the smallfolk painted the top of their holdfast to look like the golden crown she'd worn when she spent the night among them."
"I have never seen a dragon."
"No one has. The last dragons died a hundred years ago or more. But this was before that."
"Queen Alysanne, you say?"
"Good Queen Alysanne, they called her later. One of the castles on the Wall was named for her as well. Queensgate. Before her visit they called it Snowgate."
"If she was so good, she should have torn that Wall down."
I would say GQA certainly got the ball rolling. Mayhaps she even created the chink? The Night's Watch was a strong and organized force when the Old King and Good Queen visited. But by the time she was done with them, they had abandoned their powerful seat of origin and owned twice as much southron land. Such drastic changes might reorient one's priorities and allegiances, I'm thinking.
Add to this the existence of that arcane Black Gate, and what should have been a truly ancient and basic priority - guarding and monitoring it - and suddenly this relocation seems all the more sinister and peculiar.
A Storm of Swords - Bran IV
"This seems an old place," Jojen said as they walked down a gallery where the sunlight fell in dusty shafts through empty windows.
"Twice as old as Castle Black," Bran said, remembering. "It was the first castle on the Wall, and the largest." But it had also been the first abandoned, all the way back in the time of the Old King. Even then it had been three-quarters empty and too costly to maintain. Good Queen Alysanne had suggested that the Watch replace it with a smaller, newer castle at a spot only seven miles east, where the Wall curved along the shore of a beautiful green lake. Deep Lake had been paid for by the queen's jewels and built by the men the Old King had sent north, and the black brothers had abandoned the Nightfort to the rats.
That was two centuries past, though. Now Deep Lake stood as empty as the castle it had replaced, and the Nightfort . . .
Costlier to maintain than a series of new construction projects? Hmm. Color me skeptical. And, who are these men the Old King (Jaehaerys I) sent north to build Deep Lake? Why wouldn't the sworn brotherhood's Builders construct the new castle? And, why did the Night's Watch relocate again to Castle Black?
I think this latter question is answered by the New Gift. Once the Night's Watch was secularized and relocated and focused on protecting lands from wilding raiders, they no longer required magical reinforcement, they needed central reinforcement. Castle Black is the current seat of the Night's Watch for no other reason than it is located in a central location on the Wall, and lies at the northern end of the Kingsroad.
As proximity to the origin and power of the Night's Watch waned, so too did their strength and purpose.
A Storm of Swords - Bran IV
Bran wasn't so certain. The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan's scariest stories. It was here that Night's King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the 'prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting. Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark.
All that had happened hundreds and thousands of years ago, to be sure, and some maybe never happened at all. Maester Luwin always said that Old Nan's stories shouldn't be swallowed whole. But once his uncle came to see Father, and Bran asked about the Nightfort. Benjen Stark never said the tales were true, but he never said they weren't; he only shrugged and said, "We left the Nightfort two hundred years ago," as if that was an answer.
Bran forced himself to look around. The morning was cold but bright, the sun shining down from a hard blue sky, but he did not like the noises. The wind made a nervous whistling sound as it shivered through the broken towers, the keeps groaned and settled, and he could hear rats scrabbling under the floor of the great hall. The Rat Cook's children running from their father. The yards were small forests where spindly trees rubbed their bare branches together and dead leaves scuttled like roaches across patches of old snow. There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either.
There's a lot of interesting stuff here, particularly that twisting weirwood growing from the roof of the domed kitchen. A domed kitchen? Hmm. Anyway, before I digress too much, and entertain notions of ancient observatories, or a kitchen that only served Jojenpaste, let me instead direct your attention to the following...
This number creeps up more than once.
A Feast for Crows - Samwell I
He emerged beneath a sky the color of white lead. A snow sky, Sam thought, squinting up. The prospect made him uneasy. He remembered that night on the Fist of the First Men when the wights and the snows had come together. Don't be so craven, he thought. You have your Sworn Brothers all around you, not to mention Stannis Baratheon and all his knights. Castle Black's keeps and towers rose about him, dwarfed by the icy immensity of the Wall. A small army was crawling over the ice a quarter of the way up, where a new switchback stair was creeping upward to meet the remnants of the old one. The sounds of their saws and hammers echoed off the ice. Jon had the builders working night and day on the task. Sam had heard some of them complaining about it over supper, insisting that Lord Mormont never worked them half so hard. Without the great stair there was no way to reach the top of the Wall except by the chain winch, however. And as much as Samwell Tarly hated steps, he hated the winch cage more. He always closed his eyes when he was riding it, convinced that the chain was about to break. Every time the iron cage scraped against the ice his heart stopped beating for an instant.
There were dragons here two hundred years ago, Sam found himself thinking, as he watched the cage making a slow descent. They would just have flown to the top of the Wall. Queen Alysanne had visited Castle Black on her dragon, and Jaehaerys, her king, had come after her on his own. Could Silverwing have left an egg behind? Or had Stannis found one egg on Dragonstone? Even if he has an egg, how can he hope to quicken it? Baelor the Blessed had prayed over his eggs, and other Targaryens had sought to hatch theirs with sorcery. All they got for it was farce and tragedy.
I really want to talk about how "A small army was crawling over the ice a quarter of the way up, where a new switchback stair was creeping upward to meet the remnants of the old one" screams Ice Spiders and the Night's King, and I'd love to mention how Ice Spiders scuttling up the Wall might echo off the ice like the sounds of their saws and hammers, but don't worry, I won't. This essay isn't about such trifles, it's about Wargs!
Instead, let me plow forward as to why I believe this "two hundred years" number is significant. Let us return to the first passage I cited:
A Game of Thrones - Bran I
The riders picked their way carefully through the drifts, groping for solid footing on the hidden, uneven ground. Jory Cassel and Theon Greyjoy were the first to reach the boys. Greyjoy was laughing and joking as he rode. Bran heard the breath go out of him. “Gods!” he exclaimed, struggling to keep control of his horse as he reached for his sword.
Jory’s sword was already out. “Robb, get away from it!” he called as his horse reared under him.
Robb grinned and looked up from the bundle in his arms. “She can’t hurt you,” he said. “She’s dead, Jory.”
Bran was afire with curiosity by then. He would have spurred the pony faster, but his father made them dismount beside the bridge and approach on foot. Bran jumped off and ran.
By then Jon, Jory, and Theon Greyjoy had all dismounted as well. “What in the seven hells is it?” Greyjoy was saying.
“A wolf,” Robb told him. “A freak,” Greyjoy said. “Look at the size of it.” Bran’s heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his brothers’ side.
Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman's perfume. Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father's kennel.
"It's no freak," Jon said calmly. "That's a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind."
Theon Greyjoy said, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years."
"I see one now," Jon replied.
Do you see what I see?
A Clash of Kings - Catelyn V
"I am grateful for your service, sisters," Catelyn said, "but I must lay another task upon you. Lord Eddard was a Stark, and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell." They will make a statue of him, a stone likeness that will sit in the dark with a direwolf at his feet and a sword across his knees.
There is a stark difference between Ned and his statue, and the Starks of yore and those who have since warded the north these past two hundred years: direwolves.
Ned had a sword he could lay across his lap, if he wanted. But he didn't have a direwolf at his feet until Robb found those pups who were born with the dead.
I propose that Theon speaks truly and accurately when he states, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years," and, that Ellard - a truly defiant Stark - was the last Stark to have a direwolf at his feet and Ice across his lap. What changed the influx of direwolves to the Wolfswood? I believe the question is really 'Who?' As Benjen points out to Jon, rangers still hear direwolves north of the Wall. I believe the Black Gate was their passage. The Good Queen Alysanne cut off the supply of Warg-wolves, and sure as sunrise, House Stark became less defiant and the Night's Watch faltered.
Folks familiar with my "essays" know that I prefer to stay away from interpretative analysis and focus on cold, hard, canon. My pet theories have been called hair-splitting, and semantic. I'm guilty as charged! LOL
This theory is along that vein, but nonetheless, I think it is interpretive and un-semantic enough to actually be called a theory. So here it is.
A Game of Thrones - Bran I
The riders picked their way carefully through the drifts, groping for solid footing on the hidden, uneven ground. Jory Cassel and Theon Greyjoy were the first to reach the boys. Greyjoy was laughing and joking as he rode. Bran heard the breath go out of him. “Gods!” he exclaimed, struggling to keep control of his horse as he reached for his sword.
Jory’s sword was already out. “Robb, get away from it!” he called as his horse reared under him.
Robb grinned and looked up from the bundle in his arms. “She can’t hurt you,” he said. “She’s dead, Jory.”
Bran was afire with curiosity by then. He would have spurred the pony faster, but his father made them dismount beside the bridge and approach on foot. Bran jumped off and ran.
By then Jon, Jory, and Theon Greyjoy had all dismounted as well. “What in the seven hells is it?” Greyjoy was saying.
“A wolf,” Robb told him. “A freak,” Greyjoy said. “Look at the size of it.” Bran’s heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his brothers’ side.
Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman's perfume. Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father's kennel.
"It's no freak," Jon said calmly. "That's a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind."
Theon Greyjoy said, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years."
"I see one now," Jon replied.
I'd like to point out several things from this passage before getting to my theory. One, notice how quickly Greyjoy (Gloomy joy?...Stark Joy?) goes from jocular to exclamatory in the sight of what he names as "Gods," however freakish.
Also, notice that Jory, guardian of the house, has bare steel.
Bran is afire - like a burning (summer?) tree.
Ned is neither confrontational/defensive (Jory), or jovial (Theon before seeing them, Robb after), and is instead the very soul of Starkly lordship, cautious and careful, knowingly making his son dismount before approaching on foot.
Ned is brooding like a weirwood, Bran is afire like Summer, Robb is proud like Grey Wind, and Jory is combative. Each of these traits have parallels to Lord Ellard Stark (nope, that's not a typo), and are in stark contrast with the reaction of Theon, who is the sole outsider. Theon Greyjoy is aghast, sobered, and perplexed (“What in the seven hells is it?”). Mayhaps, just mayhaps, Theon is not unlike the "Good" Queen Alysanne (GQA) in this regard. It is my belief that GQA began to understand the source of Northern Strength that fed the Wall, the Night's Watch, and House Stark.
The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Jaehaerys I
Though young to the throne, Jaehaerys revealed himself from an early age to be a true king. He was a fine warrior, skilled with lance and bow, and a gifted horseman. He was a dragonrider as well, riding upon Vermithor—a great beast of bronze and tan who was the largest of the living dragons after Balerion and Vhagar. Decisive in thought and deed, Jaehaerys was wise beyond his years, always seeking the most peaceable ends.
His queen, Alysanne, was also well loved throughout the realm, being both beautiful and high-spirited, as well as charming and keenly intelligent. Some said that she ruled the realm as much as the king did, and there was some truth to that. It was at her behest that King Jaehaerys at last forbade the right of the First Night, despite the many lords who jealously guarded it. And the Night's Watch came to rename the castle of Snowgate in her honor, dubbing it Queensgate instead. They did this in thanks for the treasure in jewels she gave them to pay for the construction of a new castle, Deep Lake, to replace the huge and ruinously costly Nightfort, and for her role in winning them the New Gift that bolstered their flagging strength.
Yes, Arya, the woman is important too.
Imagine Cersei with Tyrion's brains, and Dany's blood. That's how I picture GQA. I recently speculated in the Vows of the Night's Watch thread that GQA, like many Targs, may have been prone to visions and prophetic dreams. I think GQA saw something in her dreams (at Winterfell?) that made her initiate the visit to the Wall and leave Jaehaerys behind with Lord Stark. And, I believe the relocation of the Night's Watch from the Nightfort to Deep Lake, then later to Castle Black, was for magical reasons, rather than fiscal. But, such is mere conjecture of course. Let's get back to text...
A Storm of Swords - Bran III
"Who holds this land?" Jojen asked Bran.
"The Night's Watch," he answered. "This is the Gift. The New Gift, and north of that Brandon's Gift." Maester Luwin had taught him the history. "Brandon the Builder gave all the land south of the Wall to the black brothers, to a distance of twenty-five leagues. For their . . . for their sustenance and support." He was proud that he still remembered that part. "Some maesters say it was some other Brandon, not the Builder, but it's still Brandon's Gift. Thousands of years later, Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon Silverwing, and she thought the Night's Watch was so brave that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty leagues. So that was the New Gift." He waved a hand. "Here. All this."
No one had lived in the village for long years, Bran could see. All the houses were falling down. Even the inn. It had never been much of an inn, to look at it, but now all that remained was a stone chimney and two cracked walls, set amongst a dozen apple trees. One was growing up through the common room, where a layer of wet brown leaves and rotting apples carpeted the floor. The air was thick with the smell of them, a cloying cidery scent that was almost overwhelming. Meera stabbed a few apples with her frog spear, trying to find some still good enough to eat, but they were all too brown and wormy.
Interestingly, the very next chapter of ASoS is Jon V, and Bran's Gift and the failure of GQA's New Gift are mentioned again:
A Storm of Swords - Jon V
His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. "It is a dream for spring, though," Lord Eddard had said. "Even the promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming on."
If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers in my father's name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be forged. "This land belongs to the Watch," Jon said.
So, we learn in this passage that while GQA doubled the Gift, she did not man it, or allot it to any men to tend/defend it. Thus, she alienated the Watch from Northemen by a distance of 25 leagues (~75 miles), and doubled the size of land the Night's Watch needed to tend and defend, without men to tend and defend it. And, we also learn in this passage that, like their ancestor before them, Eddard and Benjen sought to undo GQA's generosity.
It seems the doubling of the Gift did not bring about GQA's intended consequence as a friend to the Watch. ...Or did it?
Bran learned of this transaction not from his father, but from Maester Luwin. The Citadel, we later learn in the World Book, was complicit in the redistribution of the land seized in GQA's New Gift, much to the dismay of House Stark. What is quite interesting about House Stark's protest though, is that Ellard Stark seems to have predicted that the doubling of the Gift would distract the Night's Watch, rather than strengthen them:
The World of Ice and Fire - The North: The Lords of Winterfell
Later still, it was said that the Starks were bitter at the Old King and Queen Alysanne for having forced them to carve away the New Gift and give it the Night's Watch; this may be one reason for why Lord Ellard Stark sided with Corlys Velaryon and Princess Rhaenys at the Great Council of 101 AC.
We have earlier discussed House Stark's role in the Dance of the Dragons. Let it be added that Lord Cregan Stark reaped many rewards for his loyal support of King Aegon III...even if it was not a royal princess marrying into his family, as had been agreed in the Pact of Ice and Fire made when the doomed prince Jacaerys Velaryon had flown to Winterfell upon his dragon.
Though in these days it is said that Lord Ellard Stark was glad to aid the Night's Watch with the Gift, and took little convincing, the truth is otherwise. Letters from Lord Stark's brother to the Citadel, asking the maesters to provide precedents against the forced donation of property, made it plain that the Starks were not eager to do as King Jaehaerys bid. It may be that the Starks feared that, under the control of the Castle Black, the New Gift would inevitably decline—for the Night's Watch would always look northward and never give much thought to their new tenants to the south. And as it happens, that soon came to pass, and the New Gift is now said to be largely unpopulated thanks to the decline of the Watch and the rising toll taken by raiders from beyond the Wall.
After the Dance of the Dragons, the Starks were more overtly loyal to the Targaryens than previously. Indeed, Lord Cregan Stark's son and heir fought beneath the Targaryen banner when the Young Dragon sought to conquer Dorne. Rickon Stark fought bravely, his deeds sometimes reported by King Daeron in his Conquest of Dorne, and Rickon's death outside of Sunspear in one of the final battles was lamented in the North for years to come because of the troubles that dogged the reigns of his half brothers.
Okay, so the doubling of the Gift started the Night's Watch on a road to ruin. So what? Who cares about this stuff?
The answer is Jon, and anyone who might enjoy their blood unfrozen.
A Storm of Swords - Jon XI
King Stannis gazed off north again, his gold cloak streaming from his shoulders. "It may be that I am mistaken in you, Jon Snow. We both know the things that are said of bastards. You may lack your father's honor, or your brother's skill in arms. But you are the weapon the Lord has given me. I have found you here, as you found the cache of dragonglass beneath the Fist, and I mean to make use of you. Even Azor Ahai did not win his war alone. I killed a thousand wildlings, took another thousand captive, and scattered the rest, but we both know they will return. Melisandre has seen that in her fires. This Tormund Thunderfist is likely re-forming them even now, and planning some new assault. And the more we bleed each other, the weaker we shall all be when the real enemy falls upon us."
Jon had come to that same realization. "As you say, Your Grace." He wondered where this king, was going.
"Whilst your brothers have been struggling to decide who shall lead them, I have been speaking with this Mance Rayder." He ground his teeth. "A stubborn man, that one, and prideful. He will leave me no choice but to give him to the flames. But we took other captives as well, other leaders. The one who calls himself the Lord of Bones, some of their clan chiefs, the new Magnar of Thenn. Your brothers will not like it, no more than your father's lords, but I mean to allow the wildlings through the Wall . . . those who will swear me their fealty, pledge to keep the king's peace and the king's laws, and take the Lord of Light as their god. Even the giants, if those great knees of theirs can bend. I will settle them on the Gift, once I have wrested it away from your new Lord Commander. When the cold winds rise, we shall live or die together. It is time we made alliance against our common foe." He looked at Jon. "Would you agree?"
"My father dreamed of resettling the Gift," Jon admitted. "He and my uncle Benjen used to talk of it." He never thought of settling it with wildlings, though . . . but he never rode with wildlings, either. He did not fool himself; the free folk would make for unruly subjects and dangerous neighbors. Yet when he weighed Ygritte's red hair against the cold blue eyes of the wights, the choice was easy. "I agree."
The Starks of old wanted what Stannis wants, the Night's Watch focused on their true enemy. Once GQA took the shield that guards the realms of men and turned it into a property management company, the Night's Watch became obsessed with wildling raiders out to steal from their southron land holdings. As Bran learned from Maester Luwin, the original Gift from his namesake was merely enough land for their . . .
. . . for their sustenance and support.
"Sustenance and support" means enough land from which the Night's Watch could make a living, protected from Northmen who might hunt and farm it, and, wisest of all, it was not so much as to remake them into landlords.
Now, back to Ygritte's red hair. It is no secret I have a weakness for redheads, and it may be that kissed-by-fire wildling woman gave us GQA's motive. After all, she's lucky...
A Storm of Swords - Jon V
Across the lake, the tower was black again, a dim shape dimly seen. "A queen lived there?" asked Ygritte.
"A queen stayed there for a night." Old Nan had told him the story, but Maester Luwin had confirmed most of it. "Alysanne, the wife of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator. He's called the Old King because he reigned so long, but he was young when he first came to the Iron Throne. In those days, it was his wont to travel all over the realm. When he came to Winterfell, he brought his queen, six dragons, and half his court. The king had matters to discuss with his Warden of the North, and Alysanne grew bored, so she mounted her dragon Silverwing and flew north to see the Wall. This village was one of the places where she stopped. Afterward the smallfolk painted the top of their holdfast to look like the golden crown she'd worn when she spent the night among them."
"I have never seen a dragon."
"No one has. The last dragons died a hundred years ago or more. But this was before that."
"Queen Alysanne, you say?"
"Good Queen Alysanne, they called her later. One of the castles on the Wall was named for her as well. Queensgate. Before her visit they called it Snowgate."
"If she was so good, she should have torn that Wall down."
I would say GQA certainly got the ball rolling. Mayhaps she even created the chink? The Night's Watch was a strong and organized force when the Old King and Good Queen visited. But by the time she was done with them, they had abandoned their powerful seat of origin and owned twice as much southron land. Such drastic changes might reorient one's priorities and allegiances, I'm thinking.
Add to this the existence of that arcane Black Gate, and what should have been a truly ancient and basic priority - guarding and monitoring it - and suddenly this relocation seems all the more sinister and peculiar.
A Storm of Swords - Bran IV
"This seems an old place," Jojen said as they walked down a gallery where the sunlight fell in dusty shafts through empty windows.
"Twice as old as Castle Black," Bran said, remembering. "It was the first castle on the Wall, and the largest." But it had also been the first abandoned, all the way back in the time of the Old King. Even then it had been three-quarters empty and too costly to maintain. Good Queen Alysanne had suggested that the Watch replace it with a smaller, newer castle at a spot only seven miles east, where the Wall curved along the shore of a beautiful green lake. Deep Lake had been paid for by the queen's jewels and built by the men the Old King had sent north, and the black brothers had abandoned the Nightfort to the rats.
That was two centuries past, though. Now Deep Lake stood as empty as the castle it had replaced, and the Nightfort . . .
Costlier to maintain than a series of new construction projects? Hmm. Color me skeptical. And, who are these men the Old King (Jaehaerys I) sent north to build Deep Lake? Why wouldn't the sworn brotherhood's Builders construct the new castle? And, why did the Night's Watch relocate again to Castle Black?
I think this latter question is answered by the New Gift. Once the Night's Watch was secularized and relocated and focused on protecting lands from wilding raiders, they no longer required magical reinforcement, they needed central reinforcement. Castle Black is the current seat of the Night's Watch for no other reason than it is located in a central location on the Wall, and lies at the northern end of the Kingsroad.
As proximity to the origin and power of the Night's Watch waned, so too did their strength and purpose.
A Storm of Swords - Bran IV
Bran wasn't so certain. The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan's scariest stories. It was here that Night's King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the 'prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting. Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark.
All that had happened hundreds and thousands of years ago, to be sure, and some maybe never happened at all. Maester Luwin always said that Old Nan's stories shouldn't be swallowed whole. But once his uncle came to see Father, and Bran asked about the Nightfort. Benjen Stark never said the tales were true, but he never said they weren't; he only shrugged and said, "We left the Nightfort two hundred years ago," as if that was an answer.
Bran forced himself to look around. The morning was cold but bright, the sun shining down from a hard blue sky, but he did not like the noises. The wind made a nervous whistling sound as it shivered through the broken towers, the keeps groaned and settled, and he could hear rats scrabbling under the floor of the great hall. The Rat Cook's children running from their father. The yards were small forests where spindly trees rubbed their bare branches together and dead leaves scuttled like roaches across patches of old snow. There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either.
There's a lot of interesting stuff here, particularly that twisting weirwood growing from the roof of the domed kitchen. A domed kitchen? Hmm. Anyway, before I digress too much, and entertain notions of ancient observatories, or a kitchen that only served Jojenpaste, let me instead direct your attention to the following...
"We left the Nightfort two hundred years ago"
- Benjen Stark
This number creeps up more than once.
A Feast for Crows - Samwell I
He emerged beneath a sky the color of white lead. A snow sky, Sam thought, squinting up. The prospect made him uneasy. He remembered that night on the Fist of the First Men when the wights and the snows had come together. Don't be so craven, he thought. You have your Sworn Brothers all around you, not to mention Stannis Baratheon and all his knights. Castle Black's keeps and towers rose about him, dwarfed by the icy immensity of the Wall. A small army was crawling over the ice a quarter of the way up, where a new switchback stair was creeping upward to meet the remnants of the old one. The sounds of their saws and hammers echoed off the ice. Jon had the builders working night and day on the task. Sam had heard some of them complaining about it over supper, insisting that Lord Mormont never worked them half so hard. Without the great stair there was no way to reach the top of the Wall except by the chain winch, however. And as much as Samwell Tarly hated steps, he hated the winch cage more. He always closed his eyes when he was riding it, convinced that the chain was about to break. Every time the iron cage scraped against the ice his heart stopped beating for an instant.
There were dragons here two hundred years ago, Sam found himself thinking, as he watched the cage making a slow descent. They would just have flown to the top of the Wall. Queen Alysanne had visited Castle Black on her dragon, and Jaehaerys, her king, had come after her on his own. Could Silverwing have left an egg behind? Or had Stannis found one egg on Dragonstone? Even if he has an egg, how can he hope to quicken it? Baelor the Blessed had prayed over his eggs, and other Targaryens had sought to hatch theirs with sorcery. All they got for it was farce and tragedy.
I really want to talk about how "A small army was crawling over the ice a quarter of the way up, where a new switchback stair was creeping upward to meet the remnants of the old one" screams Ice Spiders and the Night's King, and I'd love to mention how Ice Spiders scuttling up the Wall might echo off the ice like the sounds of their saws and hammers, but don't worry, I won't. This essay isn't about such trifles, it's about Wargs!
Instead, let me plow forward as to why I believe this "two hundred years" number is significant. Let us return to the first passage I cited:
A Game of Thrones - Bran I
The riders picked their way carefully through the drifts, groping for solid footing on the hidden, uneven ground. Jory Cassel and Theon Greyjoy were the first to reach the boys. Greyjoy was laughing and joking as he rode. Bran heard the breath go out of him. “Gods!” he exclaimed, struggling to keep control of his horse as he reached for his sword.
Jory’s sword was already out. “Robb, get away from it!” he called as his horse reared under him.
Robb grinned and looked up from the bundle in his arms. “She can’t hurt you,” he said. “She’s dead, Jory.”
Bran was afire with curiosity by then. He would have spurred the pony faster, but his father made them dismount beside the bridge and approach on foot. Bran jumped off and ran.
By then Jon, Jory, and Theon Greyjoy had all dismounted as well. “What in the seven hells is it?” Greyjoy was saying.
“A wolf,” Robb told him. “A freak,” Greyjoy said. “Look at the size of it.” Bran’s heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his brothers’ side.
Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman's perfume. Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father's kennel.
"It's no freak," Jon said calmly. "That's a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind."
Theon Greyjoy said, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years."
"I see one now," Jon replied.
Do you see what I see?
A Clash of Kings - Catelyn V
"I am grateful for your service, sisters," Catelyn said, "but I must lay another task upon you. Lord Eddard was a Stark, and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell." They will make a statue of him, a stone likeness that will sit in the dark with a direwolf at his feet and a sword across his knees.
There is a stark difference between Ned and his statue, and the Starks of yore and those who have since warded the north these past two hundred years: direwolves.
Ned had a sword he could lay across his lap, if he wanted. But he didn't have a direwolf at his feet until Robb found those pups who were born with the dead.
I propose that Theon speaks truly and accurately when he states, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years," and, that Ellard - a truly defiant Stark - was the last Stark to have a direwolf at his feet and Ice across his lap. What changed the influx of direwolves to the Wolfswood? I believe the question is really 'Who?' As Benjen points out to Jon, rangers still hear direwolves north of the Wall. I believe the Black Gate was their passage. The Good Queen Alysanne cut off the supply of Warg-wolves, and sure as sunrise, House Stark became less defiant and the Night's Watch faltered.
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