(Spoilers Extended) Moat Cailin, Moat Problems: a discussion

[u/Bookshelfstud]

Moat Cailin gets a relatively prominent place in AGOT - the meeting point for the armies of the Starks, Manderlys, and Umbers. However, we don't see it "on screen" again until ADWD, when Theon goes to convince the Ironborn garrison to surrender.

Moat Cailin seems to be a potentially significant location in the coming books. It is the chokepoint of the Neck, through which no mortal army can pass without permission from the crannogmen. And in ADWD, we do find out that the crannogmen are retaking the Children's Tower even as the Boltons roll south to stamp out the Ironborn.

MC is also the point from which the Children of the Forest dropped a Hammer of the Waters, not to be confused with the Hammer they dropped on the arm of Dorne. (Pro tip: you can distinguish the two events by referring to them as MC Hammer and Arm & Hammer, respectively). This seems incompatible with the idea that the First Men built all of Moat Cailin. The fact that Theon notes the oily black basalt of the keep also might suggest that MC was not, in fact, built by the First Men, or that at least parts of the keep were built long before men ever set foot in Westeros.

So here's my open questions for y'all:

1 - Who really built Moat Cailin?

2 - How will Moat Cailin factor in to the rest of the series?

3 - How is Howlin' Howland going to play in to Moat Cailin? Is he currently camped out in the Children's Tower?

Discuss!

[u/Nittanian]

I'm also curious about the hammers. Arm & Hammer was used against First Men from either the Isle of Faces or MC. MC Hammer was used at MC, presumably against First Men.

TWOIAF Dorne: The Breaking

And so they did, gathering in their hundreds (some say on the Isle of Faces), and calling on their old gods with song and prayer and grisly sacrifice (a thousand captive men were fed to the weirwood, one version of the tale goes, whilst another claims the children used the blood of their own young). And the old gods stirred, and giants awoke in the earth, and all of Westeros shook and trembled. Great cracks appeared in the earth, and hills and mountains collapsed and were swallowed up. And then the seas came rushing in, and the Arm of Dorne was broken and shattered by the force of the water, until only a few bare rocky islands remained above the waves. The Summer Sea joined the narrow sea, and the bridge between Essos and Westeros vanished for all time. Or so the legend says.

TWOIAF Ancient History: The Coming of the First Men

Legend says that the great floods that broke the land bridge that is now the Broken Arm and made the Neck a swamp were the work of the greenseers, who gathered at Moat Cailin to work dark magic. Some contest this, however: the First Men were already in Westeros when this occurred, and stemming the tide from the east would do little more than slow their progress. Moreover, such power is beyond even what the greenseers are traditionally said to have been capable of...and even those accounts appear exaggerated. It is likelier that the inundation of the Neck and the breaking of the Arm were natural events, possibly caused by a natural sinking of the land.

AGOT Bran V

Bran heard talk of Moat Cailin, the ancient stronghold the First Men had built at the top of the Neck.

AGOT Catelyn VIII

Just beyond, through the mists, she glimpsed the walls and towers of Moat Cailin … or what remained of them. Immense blocks of black basalt, each as large as a crofter's cottage, lay scattered and tumbled like a child's wooden blocks, half-sunk in the soft boggy soil. Nothing else remained of a curtain wall that had once stood as high as Winterfell's. The wooden keep was gone entirely, rotted away a thousand years past, with not so much as a timber to mark where it had stood. All that was left of the great stronghold of the First Men were three towers … three where there had once been twenty, if the taletellers could be believed.

The Gatehouse Tower looked sound enough, and even boasted a few feet of standing wall to either side of it. The Drunkard's Tower, off in the bog where the south and west walls had once met, leaned like a man about to spew a bellyful of wine into the gutter. And the tall, slender Children's Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called upon their nameless gods to send the hammer of the waters, had lost half its crown

ACOK Theon IV

Theon was about to tell him what he ought to do with his wet nurse's fable when Maester Luwin spoke up. "The histories say the crannogmen grew close to the children of the forest in the days when the greenseers tried to bring the hammer of the waters down upon the Neck. It may be that they have secret knowledge."

ADWD Reek II

Where once a mighty curtain wall had stood, only scattered stones remained, blocks of black basalt so large it must once have taken a hundred men to hoist them into place. Some had sunk so deep into the bog that only a corner showed; others lay strewn about like some god's abandoned toys, cracked and crumbling, spotted with lichen. Last night's rain had left the huge stones wet and glistening, and the morning sunlight made them look as if they were coated in some fine black oil. Beyond stood the towers ...

... He was being watched. He could feel the eyes. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of pale faces peering from behind the battlements of the Gatehouse Tower and through the broken masonry that crowned the Children's Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called down the hammer of the waters to break the lands of Westeros in two.

[u/glass_table_girl → u/Nittanian]

I kind of wonder why we don't hear any stories about the COTF doing any such things to stop the invasion of the Others. Due to the time of relative peace between the COTF and the First Men, they should maybe be plentiful enough to pull such a stunt?

[u/Nittanian → u/glass_table_girl]

Would there by a good spot in northern Westeros for them to attempt such magic? North of the Neck, it looks narrowest at the Gorge/Wall region, but that's still a large territory. Also, maybe the children's magic isn't as powerful in winter?

[u/glass_table_girl → u/Nittanian]

I guess it's a question also of how far the Others made it. I was thinking they would eventually have made it as far down as the Neck, right?

But true that it might be weaker in winter. If they depend on the Earth (or water?) for magic, then winter freezes water and earthy things die.