Somewhere in the morally-muddled world of HBO’s Game of Thrones rests the Night’s Watch. The Night’s Watch are the scourge of society, the murderers, thieves, rapists, and bastards that were sent away into exile in exchange for being allowed to live. The catch is that they must spend the rest of their lives as tireless servants of the Seven Kingdoms by watching the Wall; a giant, magical ice wall built to separate the Seven Kingdoms from what lies north of it.
While the Watch was once mighty and noble, with each-and-every castle along the border being fully-manned, the Night’s Watch that we are shown during Game of Thrones is full of old men, young boys, the sick and the crippled, with their numbers having dwindled thanks to those in the realm that have forgotten about the horrors of a long winter. So while Ned Stark spent most of his days reminding everyone that winter was, indeed, coming, most believed the stories of what lay beyond the Wall as folklore and fairy tales.
Those who were sent to the Watch saw it as either a death sentence or a way to regain their honor, but the reality that we’ve seen thus far is that the Watch is no different than anything else in Westeros; there is treachery, deceit, greed and fear. The main difference is that the Night’s Watch has seen the White Walkers and the Wights, they know what’s coming, while the rest sit in their castles far from the oppressive conditions at the Wall. So while we have a while under Game of Thrones returns to HBO for its final two seasons, we can at least take in this amazing video by Garo Studios and appreciate the Night’s Watch.
