Did the Night King Spring a Dragon Trap?

[darmody]

The only plausible explanation I can come up with for the Real North plot in this episode is that everything was part of the Night King's Secret Plan to capture one (and only one) of Dany's dragons. Which is why he let the Magnificent Six wait on an island for three days, or however long we're supposed to believe it took for the dragons to rescue them. 

How did he know dragons were coming? Magic, I guess. Once he knows to expect them, he waits for Jon & Co. to march a ways out. Then he dangles a platoon of the dead in front of them. They chomp the bait, and capture a wight that mysteriously doesn't collapse like the others after Jon Valyrians the White Walker. (Good soldier, that guy; did he effectively Halfhand himself?)

Then a storefront comes in, because the Night King is also an X-Man. He lets Gendry go. Luckily Gendry doesn't immediately die or get lost. The Snow Crew is funneled between ridges into a frozen lake and surrounded. The inexplicably thin ice cracks, and the dragon-bait is stranded. 

Now he waits. And waits. And waits. Two weeks or whenever later, the Hound reveals the ice has thickened, because the Frozen North takes a long time to freeze things.

Here's where it gets tricky, because the Army of the Dead advances upon the Fellowship and could easily kill them before Dany shows up. Not much of a plan, Night King. But we all know the show needs her to come in the nick of time. There's no such thing as a climax without miraculous rescue after all hope was seemingly lost. So nevermind. 

The Night King carefully lines up a shot with an ice spear on a dragon that isn't Drogon, for some reason. Success! He allows mommy to frankly not have much of a reaction to her purported child dying. Then his compatriots lazily go about fetching another ice spear, but, oh, she's gone. Drats. 

Why didn't he kill Jon Snow for the heck of it? Taunting him is too much fun. 

Why not try harder to kill Dany and the other two dragons? Because then there wouldn't be a show. 

[falcotron]

There's a much simpler reason to let them sit on the island: He was waiting for them to starve or freeze to death.

One of them already died, and the others surely can't make it much longer with inadequate protection and no food.

Meanwhile, when he tried to attack them, they killed hundreds of his wights. And I know wights are cheap, but still, why waste them? It's not like he's in a hurry.

Also, he seemed to enjoy watching them on that island. Not sure whether it's sadism, scientific curiosity, or zen meditation, but whatever it is, let him enjoy it.

Sure, maybe he considered the possibility that the only way they could possibly escape would be to get saved by dragon, and if so, he could kill and wight a dragon, which would be a cool bonus. But I don't think that was his plan.

[spivo]

Waiting 1 day for someone who has lived thousands of years, who knows the winter will last for several years, seems reasonable.

Also we don't know yet what the NK wants, and if he is selective about who he wants to kill.

[Fearodh]

Ya, we do know too little to understand the night king. Still kinda puzzled me why he has javelins and seems to be super good at throwing them, yet does not even try to take Jon out while he is stuck on that island but waits until Viserion shows up.

Maybe his actions follow a higher plan, maybe he can see stuff similar to Bran, maybe he was just lucky on this one. I hope we learn more about the motivations of him next season or whenever the book comes out. To "destroy humanity because eviiill" is too simple to fit into GoT

[Armand Gargalen]

Brilliant theory. I may add that the NK does not know about the dragon coming via magic. He is actually in cahoots with Tyrion, who set up the situation that allowed him to concoct the most stupid mission ever and at the same time made Daenerys fall in love with Jon by introducing some aphrodisiacs in her wine while the KiTN was around.

[Samwell_Tarly]

In episode 1 we can hear the clinging and clanging of chains, also there is the spears ready made there too.

Id say he knew what was going to happen.

[charleois]

Definitely a trap by the Night King. As such it makes sense that Gendry could run and get the message via ravens to Daenerys who could then fly back: because the Others were waiting for her. The Night King was able to interact with Bran in his vision in Season 6: he has magical sight.

[pinoyathletics]

I think knew all this cause he is Bran. And when Jon etc. get back to Winterfell they will tell Bran what happened. So when Bran goes back in the past and becomes the Night King, he will know that the ink is already dry and that the Dragons were coming. 

Cause Jon Snow told him that many many years ago.

[Illiterati]

I absolutely believe this was a trap to capture his dragon, for the reason @pinoyathletics describes.

[Samwell_Tarly]

2 hours ago, pinoyathletics said:

I think knew all this cause he is Bran. And when Jon etc. get back to Winterfell they will tell Bran what happened. So when Bran goes back in the past and becomes the Night King, he will know that the ink is already dry and that the Dragons were coming. 

Cause Jon Snow told him that many many years ago.

You mean many many years infront he told him. Its not in the past its the future if he goes back...

[Gendry_Goldeneyes]

i dont think it was a trap, that would insinuate he knows about Dany and her dragons, which we have no knowledge of

 

i just think he's a patient man considering hes been planning this war for like a 1000 years

 

so we would just let them chill on the island and die

plus, one of them had a valaryian steel blade

[Erkan12]

Not sure why people believe that Night King is just like the other White Walkers, he isn't. Seeing Bran in his own vision wasn't just for show. Cracking the magic barrier of the children of the forest wasn't for show. Making other White Walkers from new born babies aren't for show. Nightking is special and he is completely different from the other White Walkers. So it's possible that he can see the future a little bit, or he sensed the dragons and set a trap like that, it's possible. This is the boss of the necromancers, his powers are completely different than the rest. We don't even know what could kill him, because I don't believe Valerian steel or obsidian would work on him as it works on White Walkers.

Nightkng is the source of their power, if he dies all of them dies. It's also not a coincidence that Nightking throwed that ice lance to the Dragon, or it's not a coincidence that he was the one that turned the Viserion into an Ice Dragon. It's seems to that only he could hurt the Dragons by his own magic and only he could turn a Dragon into Ice Dragon.

It's like the difference between the Dracula, and the other Vampires. Dracula is a vampire too, but you can't kill him like the other vampires, and his powers are completely different level than the rest. Because he is the first one and the creative father, Nightking is the same for other White Walkers.

[Kyll.Ing.]

I can only imagine all the training that lay behind that one shot. Imagine how many training shots the Night King needs to have taken to be able to throw that accurately. On the tundra, day in and day out, throwing javelins at wighted birds or whatever. Maybe he had pulled a tendon a couple of times and had to rest for a few weeks, before going back out to the range. I can imagine his early throws going wildly off target, the stupid bird flying in figure 8s above the range, the javelin landing nowhere near it. How many days did the Night's King throw his icicle to the ground and stomp angrily to the wardrobe for a long, nice, cold shower? How many times did he slip and fall, or flunk his throw? How many icy swear words has he shouted after missing by only centimetres due to an erratic gust of wind? How great was his hit percentage before he decided to call his training sufficient to hit a dragon-sized target? Does he practise with tree branches or other javelins every day while on the march? Is that why they only had 2-3 javelins left?

And I wonder if that other guy who handed him the javelin has been his caddie for long, or how that arrangement came to be? They didn't seem to verbally communicate, so the caddie must have learned to read his boss' subtle movements for "bring me a javelin, size 4, I think". Did he compliment his master for a well-thrown shot? Or comfort him after he missed Drogon? Or has he learned from experience to keep his tongue tied when his master throws a bad shot? Since there were only a handful of javelins left, did he have to go pick up the one that missed?

[Kytheros]

Dude's 8k+ years old. Even if he only spent 24 hours in a year practicing, he's got more than 21.9 solid years of practice.

And let's be realistic - he's probably spent more time than that practicing. It's not like there's much else for him to do most of the time.

[falcotron]

11 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

Dude's 8k+ years old. Even if he only spent 24 hours in a year practicing, he's got more than 21.9 solid years of practice.

And let's be realistic - he's probably spent more time than that practicing. It's not like there's much else for him to do most of the time.

Exactly. People are acting like the Night King has a hot date this weekend so he has to get the whole invasion done by Friday at 17:00. The Night King's biggest asset is the patience of the dead and all the time in the world.

He's spent 8000 years waiting for magic to come back into the world (or whatever the trigger was). All he's had to do in that 8000 years is plan and prepare. He's had time to master whatever skills he wanted to master, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, or like Bill Murray in real life.

After starting the plan, he's spent at least 7 years gradually building up his initial army. The fact that Jon is finally getting the humans all panicky about him doesn't mean he's in any more rush than he was last year. Let them panic and make stupid mistakes, he can still take as much time as he wants.

And that's also the answer to half the "Why…" questions people are asking. 8007 years and 17 days is not significantly longer than 8007 years and 14 days, so if he wants to watch Jon freeze to death instead of wasting hundreds of wights swarming him, why not watch Jon freeze to death?

[Illiterati]

Funny you should mention Groundhog day.  I think multiple repetitions of the same time period, trying to get it all right, is a key theme in GoT.

[darmody]

12 hours ago, falcotron said:

There's a much simpler reason to let them sit on the island: He was waiting for them to starve or freeze to death.

One of them already died, and the others surely can't make it much longer with inadequate protection and no food.

Meanwhile, when he tried to attack them, they killed hundreds of his wights. And I know wights are cheap, but still, why waste them? It's not like he's in a hurry.

Doesn't he have a stockpile of Ice Spears sitting next to him? He could strike from a distance. At least kill Jon, against whom the Night King seemed to have a personal thing. 

By the way, howcome the dead can wield all sorts of weapons, including potential projectiles, but can't throw?

[Illiterati]

3 minutes ago, darmody said:

Doesn't he have a stockpile of Ice Spears sitting next to him? He could strike from a distance. At least kill Jon, against whom the Night King seemed to have a personal thing. 

By the way, howcome the dead can wield all sorts of weapons, including potential projectiles, but can't throw?

Why do you think NK has a personal thing against Jon?  I felt the opposite, that he has a personal affinity FOR Jon.  There was keen interest on NK's face at Hardhome, not hate or vengeance.  Another reason I think NK is Bran.

[darmody]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

if he wants to watch Jon freeze to death instead of wasting hundreds of wights swarming him, why not watch Jon freeze to death?

Jon didn't freeze to death, did he? That's why.

8,000 years isn't long enough to learn better than the average Bond villain that you should kill while the killing's good? Where's the Night King's Scott Evil?

Both sides are making stupid mistakes, unless he specifically kept Jon alive as bait for Dany and the dragons. 

[darmody]

10 minutes ago, Illiterati said:

Why do you think NK has a personal thing against Jon?  I felt the opposite, that he has a personal affinity FOR Jon.  There was keen interest on NK's face at Hardhome, not hate or vengeance.  Another reason I think NK is Bran.

Okay, a Night King wouldn't bother taunting you, dancing around, telling yo' mamma jokes, or whatever it was he was up to at Hardhome, unless he had strong feelings. Those could be affectionate feelings. But there's a thin line between love and hate. 

Either way, when ancient, inhuman necromancers have an affinity for you, what happens? If he were to keep Jon as a pet, I'd imagine he'd want it to be Zombie Jon instead of Undead Jon.