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Did the Night King Spring a Dragon Trap?


darmody

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A couple things.

A plan like this, means the Nights King knows the future. Which is pretty Haxxed. And means the armies of man really shouldn't stand a chance. visions are one thing... but to know fully in advance that Dany was going to bring her dragons and he could take one down and the dragon will fall into the lake. "Make sure we bring a heavy chain!"

Also, if he knew she'd come why not take down Drogon and then he'd have a shot all 3 dead dragons plus take out Dany and Jon.

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1 minute ago, ramla said:

A couple things.

A plan like this, means the Nights King knows the future. Which is pretty Haxxed. And means the armies of man really shouldn't stand a chance. visions are one thing... but to know fully in advance that Dany was going to bring her dragons and he could take one down and the dragon will fall into the lake. "Make sure we bring a heavy chain!"

Also, if he knew she'd come why not take down Drogon and then he'd have a shot all 3 dead dragons plus take out Dany and Jon.

We need more info/elaboration on what the Night King's powers are.  He clearly has some sort of Bran-like ability as he can recognize Bran warging the birds and even break the warg. But yeah- I think it's possible but also sort of implausible he knows of Dany and her dragons and is somehow waiting for her to show up.  To me, that makes more sense than his actions during the Battle, as he seems content to just wait Jon and co. out despite having them dead to rights and surrounded.  

Unless there's some sort of further explanation about why he would want Jon and co. to survive- which doesn't really make sense either as he did a piss poor job of keeping his wights away from Jon in that case and was risking a lot.  

The sad truth is probably that none of it really makes sense lol.

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1 hour ago, falcotron said:

Nonsense. There's tons of evidence, both on-screen and off, that it's either 8000 or 12000* years ago, and Leaf is that old.

Bran sees a man being captured and turned into the NK who clearly isn't a wildling living in the frozen lands beyond the Wall. He sees a conversion scene that happens in a temperate Riverlands-like climate, not a frozen wasteland. Leaf tells Bran they created the Night King because they were at war, and were being slaughtered, their sacred trees cut down, when no such thing happened 16 years ago with the wildlings. Leaf says her small group serving the 3ER says they're the last handful of Children left, the rest having died long ago. Her group aren't even remotely worried about being molested by the wildlings, but they are hiding out from, and setting magic against, the White Walkers.

D&D have described the Night King as an ageless being, thousands of years old. They've also described Leaf as ageless. They've described Bran's vision as a vision of the war thousands of years ago.

The storyboards released in the DVD extras point out that Leaf and the other Children were curious how the Night King would turn out because nobody had ever done anything like this before.

And so on.

In the books, of course, Leaf is only a few centuries old, but then in the books, Leaf probably had nothing to do with creating the Others. Also, the timing the ancient legends is different from the show (and not always consistent—probably intentional to reflect that these are legends more than written history).

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* The DVD extras are a little contradictory. It seems like D&D originally planned to have the White Walkers created during the initial war 12000 years ago, later decided to have them created by the later war, when the Andals arrived after almost 4000 years of peace between the Children and First Men, and then seem to have either forgotten that or changed their minds back. But the last number either of them mentioned is 8000, not 12000, so I went with that.

We know what the north looks like NOW, not 16 years ago in the middle of the Westerosi summer. Maybe things were milder there, before it started getting colder and the snows became a permanent feature.

If the Night King really was 8000 years old, why only start moving in the last few years? 8000 years is plenty of time to get going, so why only now? There has to be a reason, and not just because. To be consistent with the story it has to be in response to what is going on in Westeros as a whole, and the only remarkable event in the recent past that might have triggered the whitewalkers to move was Robert's rebellion. So, whatever the Night King is, he has to be connected to that in some way.

Don't assume so much.

And don't forget, George Martin has commented on the nature of prophecy before, and from his perspective prophecy is not real, it is the belief in it and reaction to that which makes the prophecies happen. They would not come to pass otherwise. If you start a great war because a great war has been foretold, the great war will happen, not because it was going to happen but because you made it happen. The prophecy is self fulfilling because of the belief that it is real.

So, to be consistent with Martin's attitude the story line has to follow the general idea that Rhaegar's belief in the prophecy and his role in it is what triggered all of the subsequent events with respect to the whitewalkers and the prince that was promised. It is a commentary of human nature and belief systems.

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1 hour ago, ramla said:

A couple things.

A plan like this, means the Nights King knows the future. Which is pretty Haxxed. And means the armies of man really shouldn't stand a chance. visions are one thing... but to know fully in advance that Dany was going to bring her dragons and he could take one down and the dragon will fall into the lake. "Make sure we bring a heavy chain!"

Also, if he knew she'd come why not take down Drogon and then he'd have a shot all 3 dead dragons plus take out Dany and Jon.

Either the NK knows the future, or this entire story to date is happening in the past, which is my theory.  Present day Bran exists in both 3ER and NK, and is trying to re-engineer the past to allay a catastrophe.  In fact, he may have caused a bigger catastrophe in a previous attempt to prevent the catastrophe through affecting the past, and that's why he's trapped as the NK.

And I believe his mission, once he comes to understand it at the point of time in the past that we see as the show, is to get himself killed by the night king before he went back in time to become the night king.

Very confusing, but timebending plots always are.

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2 hours ago, Illiterati said:

So that whole chest caved in by Robert's warhammer while soldiers scrambled for rubies in the water....that is just an old wives' tale?

Simple answer....in the story rubies are used to create a glamor. This is fact, and is used in both the book and the TV show. Rhaegar was well read in ancient wisdom (before he decided to become a warrior as a result of something he read in ancient texts, he was known as a studious bookworm), he quite likely would have known about how rubies are used in this way. It is not coincidence that great play is made about Rhaegar's rubies, they are mentioned MANY MANY times in the books, and that carries significance.

If the rubies were used for a glamor, the man Robert fought at the Trident was not Rhaegar, which would explain how Robert was able to defeat him. Rhaegar was one of the finest one on one fighters in the realm, better even that Arthur Dayne. Robert was not, and only won honors in the melee (which was a precursor for lesser warriors to make a name for themselves before the lists at tourneys). Basically he was a thug, while Rhaegar was an expert at personal combat.

 

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7 minutes ago, tugela said:

Simple answer....in the story rubies are used to create a glamor. This is fact, and is used in both the book and the TV show. Rhaegar was well read in ancient wisdom (before he decided to become a warrior as a result of something he read in ancient texts, he was known as a studious bookworm), he quite likely would have known about how rubies are used in this way. It is not coincidence that great play is made about Rhaegar's rubies, they are mentioned MANY MANY times in the books, and that carries significance.

If the rubies were used for a glamor, the man Robert fought at the Trident was not Rhaegar, which would explain how Robert was able to defeat him. Rhaegar was one of the finest one on one fighters in the realm, better even that Arthur Dayne. Robert was not, and only won honors in the melee (which was a precursor for lesser warriors to make a name for themselves before the lists at tourneys). Basically he was a thug, while Rhaegar was an expert at personal combat.

 

Robert was also considered a very good fighter by a few people

that whole glamour theory is too far fetched. Nothing outside of the fact that  ruby stones were on Reaghar armor support this theory 

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I'll call that it wasn't really a "trap" per se. The Night King can't see the future, but Three-Eyed Raven can; and Three-Eyed Raven is somehow communicating with Night King and telling him what to expect and what to do.

"Go to Eastwatch and wait for a dragon, have dragon-killing ice spears ready for use; bring chains with you from Hardhome you're going to have to fish the dragon out of the water. Leave the big dragon and the people alone, give them a wight and let them escape. But put on a show so they don't immediately know something is amiss. Have your wights run up and make it look good. And do not under any circumstances hurt the curly-haired guy you keep running into. He is important to this plan."

At the least, the fact that Night King knew to bring chains indicates he knew what to expect.

Three-Eyed Raven (probably in one of the last episodes of the series) will start a major timewarg and we'll see him influencing all of the major events in the entire series. He'll meet with Night King and make a pact with him, saying he can help him and end this all, just follow my instructions. He's talking to the Red Priests, and others as well. he is the one doing the maniuplating of the events to bring about the dawn.

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3 hours ago, Illiterati said:

If the Seven Samurai were all dead, there would be no reason for Dany to fly in close enough to be in range for Ser Bruce Jenner to take down Viserion.

If only there were a way the Night King could use body doubles to still lure Dany once they were killed. or better yet reaminate their corpses.


For crying out loud, by the time Dany would be close enough see that the guys were dead, she would be in range to shoot with a spear. There's no two ways around it. Dany didn't have binoculars.

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2 hours ago, ramla said:

A couple things.

A plan like this, means the Nights King knows the future. Which is pretty Haxxed. And means the armies of man really shouldn't stand a chance. visions are one thing... but to know fully

We don't really know how fully the Night King saw the future. Presumably more fully than the visions of the Hound or the Red Witch, but there's no reason to assume he's omniscient. There is ground between knowing nothing like Jon Snow and knowing everything like God. The Night King is way beyond ordinary humans, but not necessarily as God. 

In any case, Team Man has its own know-it-all: Bran. We already know he can see everything in the past, if he digs deliberately enough. He can see an awful lot of the present, through ravens and such. It also seems like he can see the future. So the Night King doesn't have it all over us in that respect. 

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1 hour ago, tugela said:

We know what the north looks like NOW, not 16 years ago in the middle of the Westerosi summer. Maybe things were milder there, before it started getting colder and the snows became a permanent feature.

So you think the Land Beyond the Wall, a region where the features are all named things like "The Frozen Shores" and "The Frostfangs", had a nice temperate climate until 16 years ago, and those hardy wildlings who appear to have spent centuries adapting their culture to life in a frozen wasteland actually made all those changes in the last 16 years, and all the talk by the Northerners, who live way south of them, about harsh winters is actually just made-up nonsense?

1 hour ago, tugela said:

If the Night King really was 8000 years old, why only start moving in the last few years? 8000 years is plenty of time to get going, so why only now? There has to be a reason, and not just because. To be consistent with the story it has to be in response to what is going on in Westeros as a whole, and the only remarkable event in the recent past that might have triggered the whitewalkers to move was Robert's rebellion. So, whatever the Night King is, he has to be connected to that in some way.

What triggered the Night King is almost certainly the same thing that brought magic back into the world in general—Dany's dragons hatching, Thoros's rituals suddenly having effects they haven't had since the legendary days millennia ago, etc. Until then, either he couldn't leave the Lands of Always Winter until then, or just had no reason to. (Of course neither the show nor the books have revealed exactly what this big change is. We have some legends about comets and a red star, but that doesn't explain much. But that's because the explanation is part of the conclusion, and we haven't gotten there yet.)

And your "solution" doesn't actually solve the problem. Instead of answering why the Night King returned, you have to answer why the Night King was (re-)created. So you've added a whole bunch of new problems, without solving the one you meant to. Why should Robert's rebellion have caused any change in the relationship between the wildlings and the Children? Why would the Children have lied about their history to Bran if they were really only decimated 16 years ago? Why did they create the 3ER a century before they had any problems? Why would the Children have still remembered how to create the White Walkers after 8000 years, but have completely forgotten that last time they tried it they almost got wiped out by their own creations? And so on.

(Also, Robert's Rebellion isn't 16 years ago, it's something like 27 years ago. So, why did they wait 11 years?)

1 hour ago, tugela said:

Don't assume so much.

Well, I'm certainly not going to assume that everything we're told onscreen, and everything the creators say offscreen, is all wrong, just to solve a problem that isn't a problem and replace it with a dozen new ones that are.

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2 minutes ago, falcotron said:

So you think the Land Beyond the Wall, a region where the features are all named things like "The Frozen Shores" and "The Frostfangs", had a nice temperate climate until 16 years ago, and those hardy wildlings who appear to have spent centuries adapting their culture to life in a frozen wasteland actually made all those changes in the last 16 years, and all the talk by the Northerners, who live way south of them, about harsh winters is actually just made-up nonsense?

What triggered the Night King is almost certainly the same thing that brought magic back into the world in general—Dany's dragons hatching, Thoros's rituals suddenly having effects they haven't had since the legendary days millennia ago, etc. Until then, either he couldn't leave the Lands of Always Winter until then, or just had no reason to. (Of course neither the show nor the books have revealed exactly what this big change is. We have some legends about comets and a red star, but that doesn't explain much. But that's because the explanation is part of the conclusion, and we haven't gotten there yet.)

And your "solution" doesn't actually solve the problem. Instead of answering why the Night King returned, you have to answer why the Night King was (re-)created. So you've added a whole bunch of new problems, without solving the one you meant to. Why should Robert's rebellion have caused any change in the relationship between the wildlings and the Children? Why would the Children have lied about their history to Bran if they were really only decimated 16 years ago? Why did they create the 3ER a century before they had any problems? Why would the Children have still remembered how to create the White Walkers after 8000 years, but have completely forgotten that last time they tried it they almost got wiped out by their own creations? And so on.

(Also, Robert's Rebellion isn't 16 years ago, it's something like 27 years ago. So, why did they wait 11 years?)

Well, I'm certainly not going to assume that everything we're told onscreen, and everything the creators say offscreen, is all wrong, just to solve a problem that isn't a problem and replace it with a dozen new ones that are.

That's not entirely true though

 

We know the events of White Walkers started first then Dany's dragons. 

 

With that said, the North is not always snow filled. We know this because there is an portion of the north that is considered the Land of Always winter. We also know at the time of the creation of the night king, the same area that is now snow-filled was all lush and green. 

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38 minutes ago, xjlxking said:

We know the events of White Walkers started first then Dany's dragons. 

I don't think magic returning is something that happened overnight. But there does seem to be a general pattern of magic returning all over the planet—NK returning, Dany's dragons, Thoros's magic, glass candles, the new 3ER (who seems to be much more powerful than the last one, even if he has no control over those powers yet), etc.—over a relatively short period of time after a long, long era of magic gradually declining.

38 minutes ago, xjlxking said:

With that said, the North is not always snow filled. We know this because there is an portion of the north that is considered the Land of Always winter. We also know at the time of the creation of the night king, the same area that is now snow-filled was all lush and green. 

Sure, but that's just more evidence that the NK was created thousands of years ago, in a time from which only a handful of legends survive, as opposed to 16 years ago, in a time most of the characters would vividly remember.

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id really wish this trap idea was somehow true because its the only thing saving this plot from being absurd (in terms of convenience and all that)

but if it was a trap why did the night king let his wights (attempt to) kill his lure? i think this theory breaks when the wights run for the islanders

also he would have to know an awful lot to make this calculation, so much that it would give him much greater possibilities

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2 hours ago, tugela said:

If the Night King really was 8000 years old, why only start moving in the last few years? 8000 years is plenty of time to get going, so why only now? There has to be a reason, and not just because. To be consistent with the story it has to be in response to what is going on in Westeros as a whole, and the only remarkable event in the recent past that might have triggered the whitewalkers to move was Robert's rebellion.

Someone is overlooking the dragons in the room. 

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55 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Night King doesnt care.  He just wants whatever is living to die.

This. If you listen to the inside the episode....they basically wrote this episode as is. There's no "trap" it's just lazy writing. They even say the words "the hardest part is how they would survive beyond the wall". So they came up with this cliche island in the middle of a lake that wasn't frozen.

Sorry everyone, but take the episode at face value. There's no underlying storyline here.

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Face value for me at the very moment I watched: "Ah..; of course the Night King know the dragons are coming soon. That is why he is waiting. He wants to kill a dragon." Then he caught one instead, and his plan made even more sense to me. The whole fight therefore made perfect sense to me: why the wights waited, why they did not quickly overwhelm the adventuring party, why the Night King had chains and magical javelins ready, et cetera. Nit pickers just pick at tasty nits instead of stopping to think why.

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19 hours ago, darmody said:

Someone is overlooking the dragons in the room. 

The whitewalkers were moving before the dragons were born. Remember, the entire series opened with a band of the Nights Watch encountering a whitewalker beyond the wall. It was the very first thing to happen both in the TV series and the books.

They came into the story before Ned went to Kings Landing, and that was before Daenerys married her horse lord, and that was before the dragons hatched. So, they were already around and gathering forces before current events. The wildlings were being gathered to get across the wall to flee south for some time before that (which took some time, because Mance Rayder gathered 100000 of them and was searching for artifacts in the north for a considerable period while that was going on - he spent a lot of time digging up old burial mounds searching - hundreds of them), so we know that the whitewalkers only started doing their thing in the last decade or so, but not just recently. You also need to remember that the whitewalkers themselves are being drawn from the sacrificed babies of a specific man and his daughters, and given his age and the age of his daughters that sets a limit on how long this has been going on for.

Likewise, since we know that Mance Rayder ascended to the throne beyond the wall in response to the white walkers, and we also know that he is middle aged himself, we can deduce the approximate start of activity as sometime between Robert's rebellion and a good many years before the start of the current events.

So whitewalker activity has been going on for a while, but not that long. A few decades at most, which puts it in the right time frame for Robert's rebellion.

So the dragons had nothing to do with it.

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44 minutes ago, tugela said:

The whitewalkers were moving before the dragons were born. Remember, the entire series opened with a band of the Nights Watch encountering a whitewalker beyond the wall. It was the very first thing to happen both in the TV series and the books.

They came into the story before Ned went to Kings Landing, and that was before Daenerys married her horse lord, and that was before the dragons hatched. So, they were already around and gathering forces before current events. The wildlings were being gathered to get across the wall to flee south for some time before that (which took some time, because Mance Rayder gathered 100000 of them and was searching for artifacts in the north for a considerable period while that was going on - he spent a lot of time digging up old burial mounds searching - hundreds of them), so we know that the whitewalkers only started doing their thing in the last decade or so, but not just recently. You also need to remember that the whitewalkers themselves are being drawn from the sacrificed babies of a specific man and his daughters, and given his age and the age of his daughters that sets a limit on how long this has been going on for.

Likewise, since we know that Mance Rayder ascended to the throne beyond the wall in response to the white walkers, and we also know that he is middle aged himself, we can deduce the approximate start of activity as sometime between Robert's rebellion and a good many years before the start of the current events.

So whitewalker activity has been going on for a while, but not that long. A few decades at most, which puts it in the right time frame for Robert's rebellion.

So the dragons had nothing to do with it.

I'm not saying dragons caused it. But the clear implication, to me at least, is that dragons and White Walkers waking up have the same fundamental cause. Magic has woken up in the world again. It takes different forms: White Walkers over here, dragons over there, Red Priests inbetween, and so forth. 

There's no reason to assume it has anything to do with Robert's Rebellion, which was a purely human thing. Unless Jaime stabbing the Mad King had some sort of cosmic importance. (Or is it like Final Destination, and King's Landing being wildfired was supposed to set off a chain reaction leading to human extinction? In which case God or nature or whatever has to set things right by waking up Ice Demons?)

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