You know Ser Alliser Thorne who keeps giving Jon a hard time at the Wall, right? Slynt's the guy who's always beside Thorne and making similarly snide comments at Jon. He pretty much picks on Jon in every scene he's in.
The whole point of the wall is to provide defense against direct assault from the north. The attack from the front of the wall was a feint, designed to keep the real Crow warriors up on the wall, facing north. The 20 or so people attacking the gate and climbing the wall were essentially a suicide force, though I'm going to guess Manse didn't tell them that when he sent them. The attack from the south was effectively a "commando raid". All of the bad fighters, like Fatty Tarly, were on the ground protecting it from the south. After all, the bad guys always come from the north, not the south... Perhaps it would have been a good idea to include more men in the commando party, but you have to balance the fact that sending a giant group of people over the wall to attack from the south would result in the crows taking notice and placing more good fighters on the ground. A direct assault on The Wall from the north would be very costly. Manse supposedly has 100,000 men. Lets say it succeeds. You are still talking about horrendous casualties. Obviously, a guess, but lets say, 20,000 deaths. That is pretty reasonable from what I know of direct assaults of medieval walled cities. That is why the practice of siege came into being in the first place - direct assaults on walled fortifications are insanely costly. But, Castle Black + The Wall is a pretty good place to defend against siege, as well as frontal assault. The Wall is a very hard target to assault directly, while Castle Black is essentially stocked with all the food and supplies you would need in case you manage to lay siege, such as in the room where Fatty's chick was hiding with her baby. It would take months to siege Castle Black, (assuming you can get enough people over the wall to do it) which is too long. However, if you remove the castle on the ground from the equation? It seems to me that all the food and other supplies are on the ground. Essentially, take that away from the real warriors on the wall, and you have the Texans in the Alamo. So, if Manse had started off with a full frontal assault, and things had gone great, we are talking a 100,000 man army ground down to 80k, or whatever. As it is, Manse has 99,900+ men of his original 100,000, and came damn close to taking the castle without placing almost any of his army at risk. Very high reward, low risk move. It didn't work out, but it came close, and it really didn't cost anything. If he wants to bang his head against the wall on a full frontal assault, he can, with functionally the same force he would have had in the first place. The commando attack from the south and the feint from the north, by my count, cost him less than .1% of his force. He probably loses more than that every day from dysentery, assuming Westeros has dysentery. And if I were him, I'd try every other strategy I could think of to avoid a direct assault on the wall. Losing all those men is too costly if you can possibly avoid it. You don't attack the enemy directly from the direction he has all his defenses facing, if you want to win.
This guy should fill stadiums. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wiZbzBw1ZLI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
His name is Janos Slynt and he was the A-whole commander of the City Watch at Kings Landing in Season 1. In the 9th episode of Season 1, Little Finger told Ned that he had paid the City Watch to be loyal to the Hand of the King after Robert's death. When Ned marched into the Throne Room with Little Finger and a group of men, some were his but most were City Watch. After giving Cersie the letter signed by Robert proclaiming Ned the King Regent until the rightful heir came of age he looked over at Janos Slynt and told him to have the City Watch take Cersie and Joffrey into custody. It was at that point that Little Finger put a knife to Ned's throat and Janos Slynt and the City Watch actually killed all of Ned's men and instead took him into custody. In season 2 Joffrey ordered Janos Slynt to kill all of Robert Barratheon's bastards which he does. We even see Janos himself kill a baby with his knife while in the arms of his mother at one of Little Finger's brothels. Later in season 2 Tyrion has dinner with Janos Slynt which started out nice enough but ends with Tyrion informing Janos that he has no honor for killing the bastards and particularly the baby. Further more since Janos was a key figure in Ned Stark's death who was the previous Hand of the King, Tyrion who was the current Hand of the King could not trust him. Tyrion had made Bronn the Commander of the City Watch behind Janos Slynt's back and then had Bronn and the City Watch arrest Janos Slynt and exiled him to the Nights Watch. In season 4 he turns up at the Nights Watch after Jon escapes the wildlings and he is very obviously Sir Alisor Thornes lackey. Of course you saw what a coward Janos was in episode 9.
Only a tiny bit more to add, but I believe Janos Slynt was also made Lord of Harrenhall for his service in capturing Ned Stark, but Harrenhal was taken away from him by Tyrion. This continues the myth that any family that holds Harrenhal is cursed.
True in Season 2 Tyrion offers Harrenhal to Little Finger in exchange for his service and Little Finger tells him that it was already given to Janos and Tyrion took it away and sent him to the Wall. I had forgotten about that.
What I find weird is that Manse is supposed to think that there's a thousand crows at Castle Black. So he sends 50 or 100 wildlings to take it from the south? Even if most of crows are distracted on the wall, that plan still seems unlikely to succeed. So either Manse knew about that deception all along and still let Jon Snow go. Or Manse was quite foolish.
LOL.. while the actual analysis is not all that far off, the amount of sheer stupid of which it is comprised is truly epic.
I don't think the intention ever was to take it all night 1. Jon Snow even alluded to it. That wasn't the strategy. Plus they had an owl watching so they knew how many men were up there. With this show, you always assume rape. What's the point of defeating the crows and crossing the wall? The real armies in the other kingdoms don't care, once you get over the wall they'll care, and then you're ****ed.
Mance and the wildlings want to escape the White Walker army (now where the hell is that army...), so he needs to get over the wall/take it over to protect themselves against the White Walkers. I presume that involves defeating the Nights Watch.
This question may end up being a better one than you think. I've been rewatching (much better the 2nd time around...crazy how much I missed the first time around that has been cleared up), and I watched Episode 6 of season 2 last night, when Qhorin and Jon Snow were headed out to find Mance. There was an exchange between the 2 regarding Jon's direwolf, and after Jon told him he was trained, Qhorin said something to the effect of "so you think he's trained. they have their own rules, their own reasons, and we will never know them". So who knows...maybe that's some foreshadowing for the future.
Well, remember, Arya's wolf is still lurking around out there somewhere too.. conspicuously not mentioned a single time again so far in the show.. makes me suspicious...
That was a really good recap. Although the events that he described as being in episode 9 of season 1 actually happened in the 7th episode =P pretty perfect otherwise!
The ones that are dead are Lady, Sansa's direwolf, killed by Ned at the order of Cersie after Arya's direwolf, Nymeria, attacked Joffrey, and Robb's Grey Wind who was killed during the Red Wedding. Jon still has Ghost, Bran has Summer, and Rickon has Shaggydog. And Nymeria is still alive somewhere wandering the forests.
So . . .only two wolves are dead right? Rob and Sansa's are the only ones dead . . right? Rickan and Bran have theirs Jon Snow has his Arya's is roaming. Rocket River
I thought about that too recently... along with several other loose ends. There have been so many open ended branches to this story left along the journey. I thought of at least 5 but there's probably 50. Seeds planted along the way that may turn into something later. Maybe not.
