Did Aegon the Conqueror destroy the Night’s Watch?
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25 Comments
Im super early so ill ask if you'll ever cover Turin hes my favorite character in middle earth and i think the children of Hurin need more coverage in the modern fandom
I D G!!!!!!!
Robert I hope you see this, what happened to the Robert’s rebellion video series you had? I and many others loved it but it’s gone now 😔
I do love Maester Robert's lectures
I watched this video and realized I need a new way to lift my spirits – more funny videos🔥
Excellence as usual
Given up hope on the books. You’re twisting the knife at this point IDG.
You know you're in a committed relationship when "Netflix and Chill" means actually watching Netflix and chilling🍓
A new video from Robert! Yeeeiiii! Keep them coming. You are my number 1 YouTuber.
I tried to repeat the trick from this video, and now I have a new record – lots of laughs and a minor disaster🧡
If you ask me the nights watch should have been reformed. The crown should regularly organise for all the seven kingdoms to send some men to serve a limited term of service in return for compensation.
No oaths about serving for life and no oaths of forgoing marriage and kids. All the kingdoms chip in with better quality men to the wall that are willing to go. Moral is improved by being rewarded to serve only for a few years or however long someone wants to serve.
If it is treated as any other job like in a professional military service. Then you’re less likely to have poor quality troops and very few of them.
I would say Jaehaerys I (good 'ol Counciliator hisself) was also to blame in some way due to his "New Gift" to the watch, which gave them extra slices of land, but also vulnerable territories that wildings could raid if they slipped past the wall, as well depleting the already thin populations of the villages and towns near or in the Gift's range. I.e. Jaehaerys' "gift" was more of a burden than anything beneficial in the long run for the Night's Watch and exasperated their already declining state.
You touch on it a bit in this, but a comparison between peace before the targaryens and after the conquest could be interesting..
In a way, we know there was more war before it, mainly landgrabs for desputed terrotory and supremacy within a region. However these wars were smaller scale, and fought on land both sides wanted, so strategies of burnt earth was probably rather rare.
On the other hand the wars of succession or wars with the faith were wars of annihilation, where ends justified all means, and fought between armys often far from home, with no bonds to the lands and people cought in the middle.
War is hell, but i imagine the post conquest wars to be a deeper level of hell than the wars before.
Aaaahhh great video, never thought about how peace would negatively impact elements of that world
Proof that Aegon had that dream please? From the books. Or a link to where GRRM said it.
That was from the HotD show only, so far as I'm aware. There were prophecies, but no 'Aegon's dream'.
For that matter where's your proof that losing kingdoms got their men sent to the Wall? The only example I can think of where that happened was Nymeria's war, and even then it was just the defeated kings.
No offence, but rather a lot of speaking, but not a lot of evidence presented this video I'm afraid.
Even at its height, I don't think a Night's Watch of 30,000 men can defeat the army of the dead. So perhaps Aegon the Conqueror is right in thinking of them as just an early warning system.
Where Aegon and his successors fail is securing the borders of his kingdom. The Night's Watch can hold back Wildling raids but as their manpower decreased more Wildlings got through and wreaked havoc upon the lands of the Gift and on subjects of the Seven Kingdoms.
So from a prophecy/army of the dead stand point it makes sense to largely ignore Night's Watch, as long as there are some there sending a few ravens back to King's Landing telling them about the wights it's all fine. From a regular kingdom security point of view, it's a poor decision not to help the Night's Watch because they protect the lands from raids.
Perhaps…
I don't mean to nitpick (but) I'm not sure if the text meant "10,000 fighting men, 30,000 total" (using the Great Ranging as an example) – I THINK it referred to 10,000 total. Nonetheless it was mindblowing to men when I realized the obvious: the "population" of the Wall doesn't increase naturally but by recruitment, so their numbers dropped within a SINGLE generation, like by the time his grandson Jaehaerys was on the throne 50 years later. — Thinking on it, the only big recruitment waves would be after the big conflicts but we know 2 out of 4 got squandered, at least:
– Aegon's Conquest – He didn't send people to the Wall he reduced them to vassals
– Faith Militant Uprising – produced a surge of Faith Militant and Maegor loyalists by the end….who joined forces in the Night's Watch rebellion of 50 AC, so that any boost from Maegor's wars was wasted.
– Dance of the Dragons – the six year long winter that followed the war combined with the devastating Winter Fever that came with it reduced their numbers by ONE THIRD, so they got no significant boost from that. It was so bad that wildling raiders managed to force passage.
– Blackfyre Rebellion – ….MIGHT have resulted in a long-term boost to their numbers, as we know of nothing that reduced it after that….the Great Spring Sickness probably hurt them too but who knows if it affected the wildlings? (Maybe "The She Wolves of Winterfell" will give us an update?)
– Robert's Rebellion – actually did provide a long term boost, as many men there like Alisser are former Targaryen loyalists. Which raises a truly disturbing point: there's barely a thousand of them at the start of the story, 15 years AFTER a significant recruitment boost. They haven't even exhausted all the men sent there after Robert's Rebellion. ……how low did their numbers get in the 90 year stretch between the Blackfyre Rebellion and Robert's Rebellion?!?! The subsequent Blackfyre Rebellions were relatively minor and probably wouldn't send THAT many men to the Wall (Bloodraven and his men being a big exception).
I don't wanna even THINK about if Rorge and Biter had made it😮 🤓😎✌🏻
More evidence of prophecy dreams being a psyop by Cotf to fuck over humans
Another great video, Robert. Thank you.
Please bring back the playlist that covers the events leading up to Robert's Rebellion!
Not telling other lords about Aegons dream wasn’t an oversight. Would they believe him, would they think it’s just a dream or would they think Aegon used this “dream” as justification to conquer their land. He didn’t tell them because the other lords because I would’ve been dumb to tell them
Man, i hate HBO for spreading Tarcel propaganda
If I was in charge of the night's watch I would have made it temporary for volunteers. Some would stay while others would leave and tell the the stories to others which could get more volunteers.