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The Night King's Ambition.


MizasterJ

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For this theory I tried to connect a lot of big pieces because, go big or go home. I admit it's tinfoily, but fun.


Without further ado:


So perhaps the biggest mystery and intrigue is what are the White Walkers really up to? What have they been preparing for all this time? What are their goals and motivations? etc..



Well There's a strong chance that they are probably being led by the Night's King (due in part to the foreshadowing in the TV show) and (just like the Night's king), probably want revenge on certain people Westeros, namely the Starks. Why? The Night's King is a cranky old soul who wants a rematch with the north and to take what he wants and wanted back then (ruler ship of all of Westeros). The Night's King was said to take a corpse bride and impregnate her. Based on the description of the bride, it would appear that the White Walkers/Others are actually the cursed Barrows of Barrowton, who were descendants of the 1st King of the First Men.


So as a supposed husband of a daughter of a cursed Barrow King from , he would naturally try to claim ruler ship. So whats stopping him, why the hold up?



Well the most obvious is the wall, but probably not as obvious as you think, as it's not so much the physical presence of the wall but rather the magical presence, otherwise the walkers/others/barrows would just use the caverns below or some other means to get to the other side. The wall is a magical barrier that prevents them from getting too close. So how do the Walkers bring down the wall?



Well we know there's a magic horn of legend that is said once blown that it will awake giants too presumably shatter the wall: the Horn of Joramun. But where exactly is it? Didn't Mance have it? Nope that was a bluff, didnt Sam find it in a stash of dragonglass? I propose that that was also likely just a red herring. Why? because the real horn is too dangerous to leave lying around or lost in the middle of nowhere. It had to be put in a safe place and entrusted to...The King in the North. The very man who originally helped bring down the Night's King and the WWs by teaming with Joramun,and who also happened to be a Stark.


So where do the Starks keep anything super important? Well at Winterfell of corse, but where in WF exactly? Well, wasn't Ned, Jon, and Bran having visions of something lingering in the crypts?



My proposal is that the Stark that defeated the Nights King and his WW minions, was entrusted to protect the horn, so it was buried with him (or his ancestors) in the crypts and eventually forgotten.



I also propose that Brynden Rivers had something to do with this and still knows and will eventually help Bran realize' because the WWs/ Barrows and specifically the Night's King are looking to steal the horn to bring down the Wall.



However, that's not the only reason why the WWs/Barrows are looking to take over WF. Why else would they want it? Because there are hunderds of dead buried there ready to become powerful Wights for the WW army. Also this explains why there must always be a Stark in WF; only a Stark can prevent the terror of the crypts from being unleashed. And.. if that wasn't enough there is 1 more huge reason why the WWs/Barrows want to bring down the wall.


The wall is a prison for the Ice spiders, Ice dragon/s and other powerful minions of the WW/Barrow army.


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what description of the nights queen matches with what barrow curse?

Maester Kennet's Passages of the Dead mentions a curse was supposedly placed on the Great Barrow, weakening and making corpselike any living man who dared to equal the First King. Some maesters think the corpse queen of the Night's King may have actually been a daughter of a Barrow King, As it is written on the westeros.org wiki and in the World of Ice and Fire.

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The others are emaciated, and Old Nan declares them to be "cold dead things" sounds like a corpse to me, Why else would we have such similar accounts plus the Maesters theory?

There is no mention of the others being emaciated. GRRM said that the Others are Beautiful and a different kind of life, cold, not warm

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The wiki says they are "Guant". The cursed Barrows werent exactly "dead"either. The WWs on the show certainly look emaciated.

The WW on the show also look nothing like the description of the Others in the books.

I'll have to read up on that curse. Interesting idea you've got here.

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For this theory I tried to connect a lot of big pieces because, go big or go home. I admit it's tinfoily, but fun.

Without further ado:

So perhaps the biggest mystery and intrigue is what are the White Walkers really up to? What have they been preparing for all this time? What are their goals and motivations? etc..

Well There's a strong chance that they are probably being led by the Night's King (due in part to the foreshadowing in the TV show)

Yeah, it will be tough to come up with a plausible theory on any subject if you use content from the show. The show is a bundle of misinformation.

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Maester Kennet's Passages of the Dead mentions a curse was supposedly placed on the Great Barrow, weakening and making corpselike any living man who dared to equal the First King. Some maesters think the corpse queen of the Night's King may have actually been a daughter of a Barrow King, As it is written on the westeros.org wiki and in the World of Ice and Fire.

let's face it the maesters aren't great at getting theories right
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Well IF the Night Queen is a descendent of the Barrow Kings then:



1. So too are the Starks, since they married the DUSTIN girl



2. Is Barbary Dustin a Ryswell or a Dustin (or both). How is she connected to the others and/or the Barrow Kings



3. Did the LAST Dustin (ie barrow king) heir die with Ned at the ToJ (or is he still alive somewhere)



4. Did the death of the last Barrow King (ie the Rodrik Dustin) trigger the rise of the Others



5. Is Ramsay Bolton really BARBARY DUSTIN's son or brother. They share a smile according to Theon.


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Well IF the Night Queen is a descendent of the Barrow Kings then:

1. So too are the Starks, since they married the DUSTIN girl

2. Is Barbary Dustin a Ryswell or a Dustin (or both). How is she connected to the others and/or the Barrow Kings

3. Did the LAST Dustin (ie barrow king) heir die with Ned at the ToJ (or is he still alive somewhere)

4. Did the death of the last Barrow King (ie the Rodrik Dustin) trigger the rise of the Others

5. Is Ramsay Bolton really BARBARY DUSTIN's son or brother. They share a smile according to Theon.

1. According to the legend; not all the Barrow people became cursed only the ones that tried to become King ( or Queen I suppose)

2. Her blood is Ryswell so I'd say she not connected. also see above reason..

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Same thing he tries to do every Long Night, try to take over the world!

Except that NK came to power AFTER the Long Night.

<snip

5. Is Ramsay Bolton really BARBARY DUSTIN's son or brother. They share a smile according to Theon.

I think Theon was talking about the malevolence conveyed by the smile.

They're not related. Barbrey was Domeric Bolton's aunt though. She has no children as far as I know, having had none before her husband Lord Dustin went off to war, and certainly none after the war because Lord D was dead.

1. According to the legend; not all the Barrow people became cursed only the ones that tried to become King ( or Queen I suppose)

2. Her blood is Ryswell so I'd say she not connected. also see above reason..

Actually it's not king or queen in general. It's those who try to equal the First King.

Back to the OP...

GRRM's original summary of the series lists the Others as ice demons. Nothing about cursed men. However, Ned did have a thought about a "frozen hell reserved for Starks."

Night's King didn't want to rule all of Westeros. So far as we know he was content to reign over the Nightfort and the Night's Watch. Hence the name Night's King. I don't think being married to a cursed Barrow-woman would necessarily make him want to rule all of Westeros through her claim. In fact, she should have been fine when they met unless she had claimed First Queen level status, thus activating the curse. In that case, why would any man, let alone a Stark and LC of the NW want to get involved with a cursed girl? The info on the curse doesn't say anything about making them magically able to seduce people and bend them to their will, does it?

The Others showed up before the Horn of Joramun existed. What did they want the first time? If they're a cursed race of Barrowmen, shouldn't they be trying to undo the curse rather than trying to take over Westeros, which would be exactly like what got them cursed in the first place (i.e. trying to rise to equal the First King)?

I'm just trying to understand some things in the theory that don't make sense to me.

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Yet they are the most reliable source we have.

Not the most reliable but the only written source that we know of. The other sources are what one would refer to as 'oral tradition' including songs, sayings, folklore and founding myths. It is likely the maesters based their written history on these traditions, adding their own biases to it...for having had less contact with the andals, and having been less involved in the politics of the realm, the wildlings might provide the most unaltered, and 'truest' sources of all, the giants and Thenns especially as they still speak the old tongue.

Runes might provide some sort of written testament too, and better sources than the maester's history. I wonder what Tormund's bracelets, what Mance's horn, and what the Royce's sigil and bronze plate armor say.

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Not the most reliable but the only written source that we know of. The other sources are what one would refer to as 'oral tradition' including songs, sayings, folklore and foundation myths. It is likely the maesters based their written history on these traditions, adding their own biases to it...for having had less contact with the andals, and having been less involved in the politics of the realm, the wildlings might provide the most unaltered, and 'truest' sources of all, the giants and Thenns especially as they still speak the old tongue.

Runes might provide some sort of written testament too, and better sources than the maester's history. I wonder what Tormund's bracelets, what Mance's horn, and what the Royce's sigil and bronze plate armor say.

Yes but only if Wildlings were more educated and less superstitious, so no not wildlings.

Giants? not very intelligent beings seeing as how they dont make tools or homes.

Song writers? surely they exaggerate the truth for entertainment sake. So not them either.

Maybe the Septons seeing as how they have some type of religious oath which we would assume obligates them to tell the truth in some fashion.

I still say Maesters are the most reliable due to their in depth and widespread knowledge.

I seriously wonder what the inscriptions on Dragonbinder / Hellhorn means.

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Except that NK came to power AFTER the Long Night.

I think Theon was talking about the malevolence conveyed by the smile.

Actually it's not king or queen in general. It's those who try to equal the First King.

GRRM's original summary of the series lists the Others as ice demons. Nothing about cursed men. However, Ned did have a thought about a "frozen hell reserved for Starks."

Night's King didn't want to rule all of Westeros. So far as we know he was content to reign over the Nightfort and the Night's Watch. Hence the name Night's King. I don't think being married to a cursed Barrow-woman would necessarily make him want to rule all of Westeros through her claim. In fact, she should have been fine when they met unless she had claimed First Queen level status, thus activating the curse. In that case, why would any man, let alone a Stark and LC of the NW want to get involved with a cursed girl? The info on the curse doesn't say anything about making them magically able to seduce people and bend them to their will, does it?

The Others showed up before the Horn of Joramun existed. What did they want the first time? If they're a cursed race of Barrowmen, shouldn't they be trying to undo the curse rather than trying to take over Westeros, which would be exactly like what got them cursed in the first place (i.e. trying to rise to equal the First King)?

I'm just trying to understand some things in the theory that don't make sense to me.

First off, I don't think we should be too certain of the timeline that far back in time. TWOIAF inentionally casts doubt on that very thing - the before and after relationships of events from 8,000 years ago may well be jumbled. The NK likely did happen after the LN, for the simple fact that the wall is mentioned in his tale, and so is the Nightfort, and we've seen the hidden door under it. BUT, there's the funny wording: the NK saw the NQ "from the walls" - note the plural. What if the Nightfort predates the wall, or at least this version of the wall? It does make sense that the Night's King may have been powerful during the Long Night, it's just that we aren't thinking that way because George deliberately threw us off.

The horn of Joramun could really be any damn horn. I like the OP's idea that it's the horn resting under Winterfell (something is under there, after all) simply for the fact that it's flexible thinking, and George is really really creative - we have to go out on limbs sometimes to glimpse the twists and turns that George likes to throw us. Consider this - it's said the horn can bring down the wall. But how the hell would anyone even get that idea, unless the horn already knocked it down once? Or unless someone important created the horn and gave it to the Starks or whatever and said "blow this is if the shit ever goes down again," and that created the legend. How it became to be thought of as being north of the wall somehow, would then need to be explained.

The idea of the Others being barrow men who tried to take over the North is actually really great. It has parallels with the Lucifer / Morningstar myth, chiefly the idea of challenging the most high, failing, and becoming lord of the underworld. I find this idea highly credible, as we are told a bunch of stuff about the barrow kings in TWOIAF, and by now we know that George is rarely ever just doing one thing at a time with any given concept - it's always double or triple duty. I'm going to re-read the barrow king stuff and see if I find any corroboration.

I wonder is Symeon Star Eyes plays into this at all. He could potentially be a clue that there has been Other-aspected types who were noble, and of course it's been suggested that the Nights King was actually fulfilling a peace pact with the Others with his sacrifices - just like the Others leave Craster alone because he sacrifices, perhaps the NK was doing that. Which would make him noble, potentially. We can't overlook the possibility that the myths are switched around.

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Not the most reliable but the only written source that we know of. The other sources are what one would refer to as 'oral tradition' including songs, sayings, folklore and foundation myths. It is likely the maesters based their written history on these traditions, adding their own biases to it...for having had less contact with the andals, and having been less involved in the politics of the realm, the wildlings might provide the most unaltered, and 'truest' sources of all, the giants and Thenns especially as they still speak the old tongue.

Runes might provide some sort of written testament too, and better sources than the maester's history. I wonder what Tormund's bracelets, what Mance's horn, and what the Royce's sigil and bronze plate armor say.

Thats a great question - will we start to see anyone translating runes in the series? He's hidden them right under our noses, and if they proved to be a source of lost knowledge about the LN or the Others, or about the horn, that could be a way for the characters to sort of reveal the deep past to us in a natural way. TWOIAF creates tons of mystery about the deep past, which was clearly intentional. Is George ever going to tell us what really happy need back then? Obviously Branraven can see the last, but the runes could be another way. And they're not confined to the North, which is interesting too. I personally want the Royce's to play a part.... Love that bronze armor.

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