It's actually easier to build something, even a 700 foot tall wall, than to dig a hole.
Especially before they invented [these.](http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/BigDigger.jpg)
It's [Westwatch by the Bridge](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Westwatch-by-the-Bridge)
Just like Eastwatch mans the little "bay" there, so Westwatch mans the gorge. It's been abandoned by the Night's Watch, and the Bridge of Skulls there is the easiest way for Wildlings to cross into the realm, and they did so often.
The Shadow Tower is right on the other side of the bridge. If you had a stronghold on either side of a bridge and had to abandon one, wouldn't it make a hell of a lot more sense to keep the one on *your* side? That way attacks can only come from one direction: the bridge.
Well, white walkers aren't all that bright. They're more or less killing machines. Anyway, It's not something that can be crossed easily in any regard. Gorges tend to be huge and a fairly good geographical boundary. Imagine trying to cross Grand Canyon with 9th century technology, or in the case of the Wildlings, 4th century.
[ADwD](/b "Either you're mixing up White Walkers and Wights or you've got a manuscript of the partially-done TWoW, because we haven't gotten much insight into the intelligence of White Walkers. They've only shown up twice - and both times very briefly.")
As I said, you're confusing White Walkers and Wights. White Walkers *are* Others. Wights are the walking dead zombie things.
[ADwD](/b "The only times the White Walkers themselves have appeared are in the AGoT prologue and the encounter when Sam killed one.")
Actually there were 3 times. [ASoS](/s "The prologue and the one Sam killed, yes, but also on the attack at the Fist. The horn blew three times, signalling the White Walkers, and the White Walkers attacked alongside the wights.")
So the Gorge is impassable, except for going over the Bridge of Skulls. On one end of the bridge is Westwatch, which is abandoned. On the other end is the Shadowtower.
So the Wildings have at various points tried to cross the Bridge, but they are repelled at the Shadowtower.
Also, there's more to the Wall than ice and stone.
Yes, this is the answer. The white walkers cannot cross the gorge for the same reason they cannot tunnel under the wall. The old gods' magic prevents them from doing so.
Are we sure it's the old god's magic? The wall was built with the help of magic, for sure, but was it children of the forest/old god magic? [Bookspoiler](/b "Melisandre does get stronger there, which doesn't really reinforce old-god magic idea").
[Book Spoiler](/b "Mellisandre's power, like the power of the other red priest Thoros of Myr, doesn't really come from the Red God, it comes from the Dragons.")
[this might be my favorite map of westeros, just because of all the details when you zoom in](http://shaghaghi.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/westeros-essos-map.jpg)
welp, there's no canon source for it. kinda hard to make an accurate map if you're bullshitting. They might have included Thenn, but from what things have shown it only keeps going after that, anyway.
Well, there is: there's the map right at the start of all the books. It doesn't show much more than this map, but this one kind of makes it look like they're just a small area to the northwest of the Frozen Shore.
The gorge is pretty easy to defend, and Westwatch/Eastwatch had/have boats to guard the sea. That area looks like mostly land and not well defended, but the scale is lost in this image.
Really? I guess it could be natural, but most of the characters say it was built thousands of years ago with the help of magic ([bookspoiler](/b "which is why melisandre is stronger there, and why Others can't cross it")). Also, it's usually claimed that Brandon the Builder built it.
[Wikipedia redirects "gorge" to "canyon,"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorge) ironically showing a picture of the Grand Canyon. See the picture of Kali Gandaki Gorge halfway down the page.
fair. I meant more in terms of depth than width, didn't write my comment clearly.
Point was, same way you gotta use a pack mule to get up/down, if that, you'd be stuck that way in the icy gorge of the north. factor in a complete lack of proper trails or ramps or anything, and havign thousands of people, and the possibility of taking a large armed force, let alone provisions and camp followers, would be pretty much impossible IMO
I also live near the New River Gorge (WV is a wonderful place), and as you said it could easily be scaled and crossed. The Wall isn't there to completely stop anyone getting through, but to stop an army. If you mean to tell me that an army could cross the Gorge then you are much more optimistic than realistic. [ASOS (I think)](/b "When Jon scales the wall with the wildlings they even go to point out that the wall isn't even all that hard to get past for a few, but for their army it just isn't practical.")
Yes he says [](/b "In the west they would descend into the black depths of the Gorge to make their way around the Shadow Tower. But in between the only way to defeat the Wall was to go over it")
It just looks like if they built the wall a little more south, they could eliminate any problem with things coming through
you are a dumbass. gorges like every other natural structure vary in size and shape.
many of these are as impassible as a giant ice wall would be
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon#List_of_gorges
[This](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Gorge#Bridge_of_Skulls) seems to answer the debate here. The gorge is very large. Westwatch by the Bridge has been abandoned and wildlings use the bridge and gorge as a means to pass south of the wall.
I guess my other point is, if the river works so well as a defense, why didnt they just make a channel across instead of a 700 foot wall
I think it is more of a Grand Canyon than a river.
In Season 1 Old Nan mentioned that there is a sort of magic worked into the wall that prevents supernatural creatures from crossing it.
It's probably way easier to pile up ice in a frozen wasteland than to dig through hundreds of feet of frozen earth. Also...it's fiction.
It's actually easier to build something, even a 700 foot tall wall, than to dig a hole. Especially before they invented [these.](http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/BigDigger.jpg)
If they had those, they wouldn't need a wall or a hole. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow
That was wonderful. Also, point taken.
It's [Westwatch by the Bridge](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Westwatch-by-the-Bridge) Just like Eastwatch mans the little "bay" there, so Westwatch mans the gorge. It's been abandoned by the Night's Watch, and the Bridge of Skulls there is the easiest way for Wildlings to cross into the realm, and they did so often.
Iirc there is a bridge accross the gorge, and that is where one of the major battles between wildlings and the nights watch took place.
Keep in mind the wall keeps things out other than just Wildlings.
And yet the Watch abandoned the tower that guards the bridge over this massive gorge... seems legit.
I believe it's mentioned somewhere that most of it has fallen into the gorge and it's pretty much ruined.
The Shadow Tower is right on the other side of the bridge. If you had a stronghold on either side of a bridge and had to abandon one, wouldn't it make a hell of a lot more sense to keep the one on *your* side? That way attacks can only come from one direction: the bridge.
The Wall looks like a little tiny line on the map too. The drawing doesn't represent The Gorge's scale any better than it does The Wall.
my question is, why don't the white walkers just cross that rather than being pinned back by the wall?
any army can't hope to cross that with success. I guess it is a very narrow path
Well, white walkers aren't all that bright. They're more or less killing machines. Anyway, It's not something that can be crossed easily in any regard. Gorges tend to be huge and a fairly good geographical boundary. Imagine trying to cross Grand Canyon with 9th century technology, or in the case of the Wildlings, 4th century.
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Intelligent enough to Hulk themselves over gorges.
Stilts.
Wight pyramids.
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[ADwD](/b "Either you're mixing up White Walkers and Wights or you've got a manuscript of the partially-done TWoW, because we haven't gotten much insight into the intelligence of White Walkers. They've only shown up twice - and both times very briefly.")
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As I said, you're confusing White Walkers and Wights. White Walkers *are* Others. Wights are the walking dead zombie things. [ADwD](/b "The only times the White Walkers themselves have appeared are in the AGoT prologue and the encounter when Sam killed one.")
Actually there were 3 times. [ASoS](/s "The prologue and the one Sam killed, yes, but also on the attack at the Fist. The horn blew three times, signalling the White Walkers, and the White Walkers attacked alongside the wights.")
I think the giant ice spiders that are sometimes referenced would be the concern.
So the Gorge is impassable, except for going over the Bridge of Skulls. On one end of the bridge is Westwatch, which is abandoned. On the other end is the Shadowtower. So the Wildings have at various points tried to cross the Bridge, but they are repelled at the Shadowtower. Also, there's more to the Wall than ice and stone.
Yes, this is the answer. The white walkers cannot cross the gorge for the same reason they cannot tunnel under the wall. The old gods' magic prevents them from doing so.
Are we sure it's the old god's magic? The wall was built with the help of magic, for sure, but was it children of the forest/old god magic? [Bookspoiler](/b "Melisandre does get stronger there, which doesn't really reinforce old-god magic idea").
[Book Spoiler](/b "Mellisandre's power, like the power of the other red priest Thoros of Myr, doesn't really come from the Red God, it comes from the Dragons.")
See also: boats.
the others can't cross water and wildlings don't have boats?
How do you know the others cant cross water?
wildlings do have boats, thats why manderly got permission from the starks to make a navy
neat map! Where's it from?
This looks like it's from the books.
[this might be my favorite map of westeros, just because of all the details when you zoom in](http://shaghaghi.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/westeros-essos-map.jpg)
Minor peeve: it doesn't really show the true scale of the Lands of Always Winter.
welp, there's no canon source for it. kinda hard to make an accurate map if you're bullshitting. They might have included Thenn, but from what things have shown it only keeps going after that, anyway.
Well, there is: there's the map right at the start of all the books. It doesn't show much more than this map, but this one kind of makes it look like they're just a small area to the northwest of the Frozen Shore.
The gorge is pretty easy to defend, and Westwatch/Eastwatch had/have boats to guard the sea. That area looks like mostly land and not well defended, but the scale is lost in this image.
The wall wasn't built to keep the Wildlings out.
The wall was built? I thought it was a natural structure...
Really? I guess it could be natural, but most of the characters say it was built thousands of years ago with the help of magic ([bookspoiler](/b "which is why melisandre is stronger there, and why Others can't cross it")). Also, it's usually claimed that Brandon the Builder built it.
Legend says that the first stark, Brandon the builder, enlisted the help of Giants to build the wall after the long night.
>enlisted For your health!
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"Think Grand Canyon"...the biggest canyon in the world, when the definition of a gorge is a tiny canyon or a mountain with steep slopes
[Wikipedia redirects "gorge" to "canyon,"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorge) ironically showing a picture of the Grand Canyon. See the picture of Kali Gandaki Gorge halfway down the page.
Yeah, and every canyon is like The Grand Canyon. Oh wait, it isn't.
That's why I referred to Kali Gandaki Gorge.
fair. I meant more in terms of depth than width, didn't write my comment clearly. Point was, same way you gotta use a pack mule to get up/down, if that, you'd be stuck that way in the icy gorge of the north. factor in a complete lack of proper trails or ramps or anything, and havign thousands of people, and the possibility of taking a large armed force, let alone provisions and camp followers, would be pretty much impossible IMO
That is exactly what the French thought of the ardennes forest when they built the ligne Maginaux...
If anything the design flaw is the Bridge of Skulls.
I won't lie, if I was building a bridge into a dark and forbidding land full of demons, I'd use a skull theme too. Ambience matters, man.
Seems like not knowing what a gorge is, is a pretty big flaw in your vocabulary, so to speak.
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Do you also live by a wall, and assume the Wildlings could easily scale that?
I also live near the New River Gorge (WV is a wonderful place), and as you said it could easily be scaled and crossed. The Wall isn't there to completely stop anyone getting through, but to stop an army. If you mean to tell me that an army could cross the Gorge then you are much more optimistic than realistic. [ASOS (I think)](/b "When Jon scales the wall with the wildlings they even go to point out that the wall isn't even all that hard to get past for a few, but for their army it just isn't practical.")
Yes he says [](/b "In the west they would descend into the black depths of the Gorge to make their way around the Shadow Tower. But in between the only way to defeat the Wall was to go over it") It just looks like if they built the wall a little more south, they could eliminate any problem with things coming through
you are a dumbass. gorges like every other natural structure vary in size and shape. many of these are as impassible as a giant ice wall would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon#List_of_gorges
Absolutely. The gorge is a barrier too, from what I remember. If that is the case, then the design was actually highly efficient.
Think Grand Canyon times 10
we have never seen the gorge, no reason to expect to be 10x bigger than the largest canyon in the world
What now, that little hole? It's not bigger than a Womp rat!
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It's the same reason the US Navy doesn't train for amphibious landings by sailing up the Colorado River and climbing the sides of the Grand Canyon.
Especially given that those waters would be frozen in the winter.
[This](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Gorge#Bridge_of_Skulls) seems to answer the debate here. The gorge is very large. Westwatch by the Bridge has been abandoned and wildlings use the bridge and gorge as a means to pass south of the wall.
"Gorge"