Applying science to Game of Thrones: Could the Wall exist in real life?
By Corey Smith
From shadow babies to giant fire-breathing dragons, Game of Thrones is replete with magic and mystery. Take the Wall, a 700-foot wall of ice that runs for 300 miles and is 300 feet thick. Per legend, the structure was built by Bran the Builder thousands of years in the past, with the help of a giant or two. Back in season 6, Uncle Benjen told Bran that the Wall is more than just ice — there are spells weaved into it as well.
Apparently, those spells are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, because under real-world circumstances, the Wall couldn’t exist.
That’s per glaciologist (yes, that’s a thing) and University of Alaska Fairbanks professor Martin Truffer. According to him, the Wall couldn’t stand up under itself. “Ice deforms under its own weight, and 700 feet is a lot of weight,” he said. “That’s way more stress than the ice would be under in the Antarctic ice sheet.”
Truffer made the dream-killing comments as part of a poster for the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, which sounds like a hoot.
In this world, the iciest place is Antarctica, where nature’s largest ice cliffs usually top off at 300 feet, less than half the height of the Wall. Differential pressure — the difference in pressure between the ice itself and the air around it — is one of the big reasons they can’t climb higher. “If you have atmosphere next to ice with a 700-foot load on it, that ice would flow out like butter,” Truffer said. “The ice would flow out faster than you could put the next ice block on.”
Yeah, but what if you had giants helping you? Use your head, dude.
Truffer used an actual real world example to back up his thoughts, citing Great Britain and Canada’s failed World War II-era attempts to build an aircraft carrier out of ice and wood pulp, which apparently is also a thing.
There are, to be fair, ways engineers could get around these problems. Truffer noted that “if gentle slopes of ice buttressed” the Wall, it might actually stand. Of course, if the Wall had gentle slopes on either side of it, wildlings and White Walkers could simply climb right over, defeating the purpose.
But assuming the Wall could exist, would the undead ice flames spewed by Zombie Viserion be enough to bring it down, scientifically speaking? We’ll wait.
Next: HBO discounts Game of Thrones merchandise for its Winter Sale
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