Why don't the free folk just go around the Wall?
Okay so I promise not to drag too much twitter bullshit here but I thought this dumbass tweet/image and it's accompanying message is actually a good segue into a talk about the free folk and the wall.
firstly, made with ai. secondly twitter premium account lol. i only point this out because all the replies suck ass and it's all people who pay to use that fuckass website. so.
But actually! Why don't the Free Folk just use the ocean to go around the wall? :
Well, they do! There's a reason that Skagos, Last Hearth, Bear Isle, Deepwood Motte and the mountain/wolfswood lords (such as the Liddles and the Flints) are the ones who face the most common wildling raidings. Because the easiest way for wildlings to raid the north is via the ocean, or even the gorge. lol. Here's a little (real) map of the north to show you;
they intentionally either raid The Gift and leave ahead of the Night's Watch, or they bypass The Gift and sail directly to coastal towns beloning to the Mormonts, Umbers etc. They do this because the Watch is prepared for Wildling attacks, so are the settlements in the Gift and the New Gift.
The rest of the North becomes complacent due to this - aside from Bear Island, who are cut off from the Night's Watch by the ocean - Westwatch-by-the-Sea is not a currently occupied castle on the Wall, there IS no naval support on the western front.
There's actual textual evidence for bear island facing the brunt of wildling attacks in the North. Skagos is protected by their similarities to the Wildlings and their overall spooky 'presence'.
So firstly. The wildlings DO raid from the western ocean, and the Wall is separated from the western coast by a massive Gorge. When the free folk raid from the western coast they leave from much further north, the Frozen Shore.
But maybe the question they meant is specifically why doesn't Mance take his army around the wall.
Well... he can't take them around the wall in the west; his 'army' is a travelling caravan of THOUSANDS of different living animals. Most are free folk, but some are dogs, cattle, goats, giants, aurochs and mammoths. there is at least 3 wolves, a boar, an eagle, a shadowcat and a bear. Also included are all the elderly, sick and young of said species.
When the wildlings sail for raids they use small craft boats; they dont do any metal working, their vessels are intended to sail them there to get what and who they want, and sail them back. They don't take their animals and they rarely bring non-humans back.
Their vessels are NOT intended to sail the entire population north of the wall, least of all cattle, oxen, aurochs, giants or mammoths. They do not have nearly enough ships of any kind in that part of the north.
To get over or around the wall on the west they have to travel ACROSS the gorge; with all this population, including newborns and infirms. When Mance comes up with his final plan on how to get past the wall, he is running on the information that there are three manned towers on the wall, with 1000 men between them. These are The Shadow Tower (by the gorge), Castle Black and Eastwatch-by-the-Sea (my next point).
They cannot use the west to cross. So how about the east? via Hardhome and past Skagos. (maps of beyond the wall for clarity)
Hardhomes key features is that it's an incredible natural port. The current settlement is a ruin, but the area itself is a naval spot that can host a large fleet of sizable ships.
And allegedly recently has, because hardhome becomes the back-up plan for the Free Folk after the army is shattered by King Stannis. And at hardhome a fleet of slaver ships carried off hundreds of free folk believing their salvation had come.
The only reason they risked hardhome is because they had a lack of cohesion and Hardhome was the option for if Eastwatch was unmanned. Eastwatch is a naval castle and it has a small fleet, it is literally prepared and designed to take on free folk raiders. Mance already knew that Eastwatch was manned before Jon told him; it was a loyalty test. Mance also knew and confided in his trusted men that Hardhome was the worst case scenario.
Going east is a near-death sentence. Going west isn't possible. Going on a longer voyage on the west isn't possible even IF they could get to the frozen shore*. Those are kind of all the options except sailing to Braavos; which isn't on any of their minds, why should they have to leave their own lands just because some other dudes slapped a giant wall up and they were on the 'wrong' side.
*(which they would have to double-back up the milkwater, and either risk a crossing somewhere, stop to build a bridge (risking the Other's catching up.) or go all the way north into Thenn, then down the Frostfangs and survive that entire journey, cold and starving and being following by Death itself.)
Just some interesting stuff I picked up on about the wildlings simply via reading the books; I fact checked plenty of what I've said and claimed here but a lot of this is just me raw dogging an analysis.
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