Massacre at Hardhome

The Massacre at Hardhome is an event in the conflict beyond the Wall between the Night's Watch and the Free Folk against the White Walkers and their wights.
==History==
===Prelude===
Jon Snow learns form Tormund that many of the wildlings, who escaped from the battle for the Wall, are at Hardhome (it is not mentioned how many they are). He offers Tormund to bring them to Castle Black. Tormund asks for ships, and Jon promises that he'll talk with Stannis about lending his fleet. Tormund demands that Jon will accompany him."Kill the Boy"
Jon and Tormund, along with other members of the Night's Watch, arrive at the wildling town of Hardhome to convince the rest of the wildlings to join them in the upcoming war against the White Walkers and their armies of wights. Refusing to ally with the Night's Watch, the Lord of Bones insults Tormund, prompting Tormund to beat his former ally to death with his own scepter.
Nevertheless, they gather in the town hall to discuss an alliance, but many of the wildlings do not trust Jon. Having not seen Mance Rayder since he was taken prisoner at Castle Black, the wildlings question his whereabouts. Jon informs them that he shot an arrow through Mance's heart, which angers the group, but Tormund speaks for Jon, stating that Rayder was about to be burned at the stake as a vicious message from Stannis, and Jon defied that order by shooting Mance before he would suffer any longer. Some leaders are convinced, such as Karsi and the giant Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun, but others like the Thenn warrior Loboda remain defiant and refuse to ally.
===Battle===
As the wildlings are boarding rowboats that will take them to safety around the Wall, the sounds of a storm are heard and a mist starts to pour over the cliffs behind the settlement. Recognizing this as the sign of approaching White Walkers, Loboda orders the gates of Hardhome to be shut, abandoning thousands of the Free Folk to their fate, as they all rush to get through the gate. Whilst pleading for the gates to be opened, those trapped on the other side are suddenly silenced and walk away from the gate. Evidently transformed by either the mist or whatever lurks within it, they reanimate as wights and join the other undead in breaking through the gates or climbing over the walls. Jon, Tormund, Loboda, and Karsi fight alongside the wildlings to buy time for an escape. On top of a cliff overlooking Hardhome, multiple White Walkers mounted on undead horses oversee the battle, including the Night King. Realizing the need for dragonglass, the only known lethal substance against the White Walkers, Jon and Loboda rush to the town hall, which is engulfed in flames. A White Walker lieutenant confronts the two. While Loboda confronts the threat, Jon Snow goes for the dragonglass. Loboda's axe shatters immediately upon contacting the White Walker's crystal sword before he is impaled.
Jon reaches for a dragonglass dagger, but is tossed aside by the White Walker and disarmed when his sword, Longclaw, is knocked out of his hand. He grabs an ordinary weapon, only to have it shatter upon contact with the White Walker's blade.
Jon retreats from the burning town hall and retrieves Longclaw. When he again engages the White Walker, both he and the White Walker are surprised to see that the Valyrian steel sword doesn't shatter on contact with the Walker's crystal sword. Seizing the opportunity, Jon strikes at the Walker, who immediately shatters to pieces after being touched by Longclaw. The Night King looks upon this turn of events with mild interest, likely because he didn't expect anybody to put up any form of meaningful resistance. Meanwhile, Karsi fights off multiple wights before she is confronted by a pack of undead children. Frozen in horror, she is overwhelmed by them. The Night King screams, signalling more wights to leap from the cliffs, and they begin slaughtering the remaining defenders as they attempt to flee to the water. Shielded by the giant Wun Wun, who wields a burning log as a club before walking into the sea with them, they manage to get to the last remaining boat to make it to their ships.
===Aftermath===
Those killed in the defense of Hardhome, as well as those who were unable or unwilling to board the royal fleet, are reanimated as wights by the Night King; as Jon watches from his boat, the Night King slowly raises his hands and the dead reawaken with glowing blue eyes. The wildlings were ultimately successful in evacuating around 5,000 people, but at least as many were killed and revived. Aside from the Free Folk evacuees, the only tactical advantage that the Night's Watch gained from the massacre was the information that Valyrian steel is lethal to White Walkers, and even that was only discovered by accident when most of their dragonglass was lost, and is limited in practical use by the rarity of Valyrian steel weapons. They also become aware of the Night King, although they learned nothing of him except that he is the leader of the White Walkers, and has the ability raise thousands of dead people and turn them into wights instantly.
== In the books ==
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the events at Hardhome take place "off-screen", so the size of opposing forces, number of casualties, and the outcome of the conflict are unknown as of A Dance with Dragons. Thus, what is depicted in the TV series is partly beyond the books. However, in terms of the narrative and the story, the massacre at Hardhome in the show is an amalgamation of four different missions ordered by Lord Commander Jon Snow in the latest book: first, after the battle for the Wall, Jon sent a wildling envoy named Val (Mance Rayder's sister-in-law) beyond the Wall in order to find the wildlings (who were led by Tormund himself, as he was not captured during the battle), a task she eventually accomplished. Also, during a ranging beyond the Wall, Jon encountered the giant Wun Wun and a small group of wildlings, who he convinced to come back to Castle Black with them. Later, Jon learned from them about the thousands of Free Folk at Hardhome, and sent many of his men to the ruined settlement by sea, so as to bring the wildlings south. However, wights surrounded the area and the rescuers were left stranded, so Jon and Tormund planned to go themselves and save the black brothers and wildlings both — though this mission was interrupted by a mutiny at Castle Black. The TV series picked the Hardhome setting of the latter two failed missions and ascribed it to the former successful missions that brought Wun Wun and, thanks to a wildling envoy, thousands of Free Folk through the Wall.
In the books, Jon told Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyck, and Septon Cellador what several of the wildlings had told him: a woods witch called Mother Mole had a vision of a fleet of ships arriving to carry the Free Folk to safety across the Narrow Sea. About six thousand of those who fled the battle of the Wall were desperate enough to believe her. She led them all to Hardhome, there to pray and await salvation from across the sea. Jon intended to bring as many of them as possible to Castle Black, reasoning that any wildling who dies at Hardhome is one more wight to fight against. Marsh, Yarwyck, and Cellador disagreed, just as they had consistently objected to Jon's idea of bringing wildlings to the Watch. Yet, Jon remained adamant and gave orders to Cotter Pyke to sail to Hardhome with the eleven ships they had, three of them from Salladhor Saan's fleet and another three that Jon borrowed from Tycho Nestoris (since, in the novels, Nestoris seeks out Stannis at Castle Black instead of Stannis seeking the Iron Bank's aid before sailing north). Unlike in the show, Jon, Eddison Tollett, and Tormund did not travel there, and Wun Wun did not take any part.
Unbeknownst to Jon (though Arya did hear about it in Braavos), two Lyseni galleys arrived some time before at Hardhome to make repairs. They offered the wildlings to take the women and children to safety. The wildlings had nothing to eat, so the men sent out their wives and daughters, but as soon as the ships were out to sea, the Lyseni enslaved them. Soon they ran into another storm and the ships were parted. One of the ships was so damaged her captain had no choice but to put in to Braavos, and was seized by the Sealord's guard, since slavery is forbidden there; the other ship, however, might have made it back to Lys. As things turn to be, that raiding has unexpected disastrous consequences on Cotter Pyke's mission.
The first of Cotter Pyke's reports that Jon received read: "Calm seas today. Eleven ships set sail for Hardhome on the morning tide. Three Braavosi, four Lyseni, four of ours. Two of the Lyseni barely seaworthy. We may drown more wildlings than we save. Your command. Twenty ravens aboard, and Maester Harmune. Will send reports. I command from Talon, Tattersalt second on Blackbird, Ser Glendon holds Eastwatch".
The next report contained very bad news: "At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune". This message is the only source of information about the event: apparently, the wildlings mistook Cotter Pyke for another slaver who came to kidnap and sell their women and children to slavery, and acted aggressively toward the people who came to save them. Worse, they were under attack of wights, who apparently can operate underwater, though it is unknown whether the Others are present as well.
Consequently, Jon consulted with his subordinates as to what they should do. Bowen Marsh advised Jon to let the wildlings die, and Queen Selyse and Melisandre both agreed, the latter telling Jon she had seen in a vision that "Your ships are lost. All of them. Not a man shall return." After thinking it over, Marsh and Yarwyck advised Jon to send there wildlings, reasoning that they were useless for the Watch and expendable. Jon decided to send a ranging force that would cross the Haunted Forest and approach Hardhome by land, with him and Tormund leading. However, his plans were interrupted by a letter from Ramsay Bolton, claiming Stannis had perished and commanding Jon to surrender the king's family, among other demands, which infuriated Jon to the point that he relinquished command of the mission to Tormund alone so that he could deal with Ramsay himself — a decision that proved to be the immediate trigger for the fateful mutiny against him.
Though that is the last reference to the conflict in Hardhome in the novels so far, its outcome is prophesied in the novel: Melisandre saw a vision in the fire which, if accurate, is the most descriptive portrayal of the actual battle in the books, and corresponds to the show in many aspects, from the wooden palisade to the White Walkers showing up:
: "Snowflakes swirled from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the white whirling around each other as flaming arrows arced above a wooden wall and dead things shambled silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves. Then the wind rose and the white mist came sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward only the skulls remained."
Similarly, Patchface, the court jester of Dragonstone, sang: "The crow, the crow. Under the sea the crows are white as snow, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh." Later, when Jon argued with Selyse about sending ranging force to help Cotter Pyke, Patchface exclaimed: "I will lead it! We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves we will ride seahorses, and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh."
==References==
===Notes===
Category:302 AC
Category:Conflict beyond the Wall
Hardhome
de:Massaker von Hartheim
fr:Massacre de Durlieu
pt-br:Massacre de Durolar
ru:Бойня в Суровом Доме