Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and because last week we got a big white walker surprise I
wanted to do a bonus video that talked about the last great war with them and the building
of The Wall.
One of the really cool things about the show and the books are that you learn a lot about
history anecdotally.
That is characters themselves reading things in books and making casual references.
So that’s where most of our info on the White Walkers and the Great Other come from.
If you’re finding me for the first time each week I’m doing special bonus videos
just to celebrate season 4.
Be sure to subscribe to get everything and leave me suggestions for topics you’d like
to see.
My episode 5 video will post tonight after the episode airs.
So the funny thing about most of the characters on the show is that like Jon Snow, they know
nothing of the Long Night.
Remember when Old Nan made that “Sweet Summer Child” speech in season 1?
She was talking to the Stark children because they had been born during the Long Summer.
The world of Game of Thrones is weird in that seasons last for indeterminate amounts of
time.
So the summer as of season 1 had lasted for 10 years.
Right now, right after the purple wedding is officially the beginning of Winter.
Winter has come.
I think that’s one of the reasons Dan and Dave chose to include that White Walker scene
in episode 4.
The Long Night was a little bit different in that it was a period of extreme darkness
that lasted for a generation.
So it was more than just a Long Winter.
When they say Generation I think we can assume based on life expectancy that it was about
50 or 60 years.
Old Nan was the first person to mention the Long Night in season 1.
She was trying to tell Bran the story of Brandon the Builder.
His Stark Ancestor that built the Wall at the end of the Long Night.
That period in history was during the time of the First Men.
Remember in Season 2 they visited the Fist of the First Men.
That’s when Jon Snow’s story split off with Ygritte and Sam saw the White Walker
for the first time.
There was a person called The Last Hero and when you look
at his triumph over the white walkers he sounds a lot like Melisandre’s version of Azor
Ahai, just someone who saves the world from darkness.
There’s some books about him at the Night’s Watch that talk about the Obsidian blades
being able to hurt them.
We really only learn about this more as Sam learns about it.
So I’m hoping we get to see more of him in the library.
One of the big problems with all the books everyone has are that none of them were written
while the Long Night was happening.
Everything was written my Maesters and scholars thousands of years later.
In the chronology of the show.
The Long Night was actually about 8,000 years ago.
The Children of the Forest were a big part of this time in history.
Technically it’s referred to as the Age of Heroes.
It began when the first men signed a pact with the Children to end a different war and
it’s believed that the Last Hero, when he ended the Long Night, did so with the help
of the Children.
Again, we only learn about these types of things when characters on the show tell it
to other characters.
I’m hoping that George RR Martin’s upcoming books go into much greater detail.
Here’s where we need to talk about The Wall and Brandon the Builder.
He was the founder of House Stark.
We know he was alive at the end of the Long Night, but I can’t confirm he was present
at the signing of the Pact between the Children of The Forest and the First Men.
There’s no official timeline for those events.
Yet.
The rumors say that when Brandon built the wall he had help from the Giants and probably
wildlings too.
After a war like the Long Night you can imagine most people put their differences aside.
So anyone who was not a servant of the Great Other probably helped build it.
There are supposed magic runes and wards that protect it, but we haven’t learned anything
official about that yet.
When it was first built they used a lot of the natural mountains in the area to provide
the foundation.
So it’s not like they were building a 300 mile long 700 foot high block of ice on completely
flat ground.
It’s just that because the Wall sits on top of mountains at certain points, you can’t
see them.
Supposedly the big blocks of ice they used were quarried from the lakes in the haunted
forest and the Wall just slowly got bigger over the centuries.
Meaning that when it was first built, during Brandon lifetime.
It was way smaller.
I think that’s way more plausible.
And the members of the Night’s Watch just slowly added to it over time until it got
to the size it is right now.
For example, the Great Wall of China was built over a period of Two Thousand Years.
They did not have Giants helping, so maybe shave off a couple hundred years for Brandon’s
Wall.
When it first started the Night’s Watch had an army of men helping out.
At it’s biggest there were about 10,000 men serving in 19 castles along The Wall.
Right now there are only three castles being used and a handful of men manning them.
They’re using the Shadow Tower, Castle Black and Eastwatch.
They’re basically three castles that are equidistant from each other from the westernmost
part of The Wall to the Easternmost part.
With Castle Black being in the middle.
During Season 2 Mance Rayder talked about destroying The Wall with something called
the Horn of Winter.
It’s a legendary horn that belonged to Joramun the Wildling King that helped defeat the Night’s
King.
The horn was used to call the Giants to him.
But it’s also supposed to be able to bring The Wall down.
We don’t know if this is true, but ‘bringing the wall down’ could be a literal interpretation
of Giants just smashing it physically.
The Horn that Mance Rayder claims is the Horn of Winter is about eight feet long with Runes
of The First Men on it.
The thing I really like about the show and the books are that because most of this information
is passed along in the form of legend.
There’s no way to know what’s true and what’s been fabricated.
We know Dragons exist and we know that magic exists.
We just saw that the White Walkers have a very real culture and home of their own.
That’s supposedly located up in the Lands of Always Winter.
You can see it here on a map just to give you an idea of how far away it is from the
rest of Westeros and The Wall.
As you can see based on the distance from The Wall to Winterfell, the supposed home
of the White Walkers isn’t that far away.
But they are separated by this great mountain range.
We don’t know how big their army is right now, but in my last video I speculated that
because Craster had sacrificed all 99 of his sons, there were at least 100 White Walkers
including the Night’s King.
They raise wights to form their infantry, but we don’t know if every White Walker
possesses the same magic as the Night’s King.
I would assume yes.
I think of them as being like Melisandre and Thoros, who each have the same powers, even
though each acolyte has their own specialties.
Melisandre can conjure visions and birth shadow babies and Thoros can bring people back to
life.
I would assume the White Walkers each have their own specialties too.
I don’t think we’ll learn more about that until we get more books, so let me know what
other things you’re most hoping to learn about them.
Either on the show or in the books.
In related news, I’m posting my review tonight after episode 5 airs.
Be sure to subscribe to get it.
That’s also when round 5 of the giveaway starts.
Because I’m getting ready to hit 200,000 subscribers I’m doubling it and giving away
two gift cards.
I’ll have more details in my review video.
Right now click here for last week’s episode and click here for my Night’s King Q&A video.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight.
High Fives!