Annoyed by the Night Watch (possible spoilers)

[Young stormlord]

Why? For the first three and a half books they were all begging the lords and kings

"Oh please give us more men. We need them to defend the realm. The winter is coming. Either give us men or come to the wall with your army.BOO HOO! We need help. Please come to help us!"

Then, when they do get their army, suddenly they are all: "Ah, shucks! We can't feed that many. Sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else. We did not plan for this eventuality. Move along, nothing to see here."


"But you wanted this! You wanted many men to defend the realm." voice of reason says.

"We? Nah, you misunderstood. Men? Nah, that's not true. We wanted many robo... magical constructs that eat snow and piss hot water. And can fight like demons. Men? Who asked about men? Not us!"
Aargh!

Is anyone else annoyed by that?

 

[Koopa]

yes and no. The ones whining probably ever did so.
It just that previously they weren't in charge, or someone else but Jon had to deal with them. I recall them whining about the Wall deteriorating to the Old Bear. There will always be wankers within a large enough body of people.

 

[Needle]

Yes it is kinda annoying but as you said they were begging kings and lords, to protect the wall from wildlings! They sure never wanted wildlings to protect the wall! Even most of the watch had forgotten what the wall was really meant to protect from! Forgotten that there were no wildlings till after the wall was built and some chose to go beyond it!

 

[Mesanna]

I think you need to take the war and the turning of the seasons into account too.

I think if an army had shown up 5 years earlier, ready to defend the wall, they would have been welcomed with open arms. Food was plentiful and more could easily be bought. But now, in the aftermath of the war, so many crops have been destroyed or gone unharvested. Autumn has officially begun with winter on its heels. There aren't going to be many (or any?) more harvests for who knows how long. The Night's Watch has to look to preserve itself and Jon, as commander, has to make hard decisions.