Consider the map of Westeros as a human body: ‘The Neck’ is located centrally, at Greywater Watch. Perhaps the farther North you go the closer you move towards the mind, and the farther South you go the closer you move towards the genitals. Contrast the frankness and unapologetic polyamory of Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand (from Dorne at the most southerly point of Westeros) with the celibacy expected of the Watchers of the Wall and the shame they associate with physical desire (at the most northerly point of Westeros). Near and beyond the Wall, sex acts occur literally underground (Mole’s Town and Jon’s and Ygritte’s cave). The Wall is more than a pile of frozen blocks; it is frequently described in the novels as a living thing which ‘weeps’ and ‘defends itself’. What if the Wall represents the human mind’s need to protect itself from the madness which would result from a direct confrontation with its most profound fears?
I could see the Wall representing instead the Lacanian sense of the arrival of language. The open sensuality of the south would be the Imaginary that is repressed at the Mirror stage. – Aedon6 years ago
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