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Did the Night King Spring a Dragon Trap?


darmody

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Just to add some info to this debate (pretty interesting by the way), the NK actor is also the one who was turned into a WW by the Children, so I'm guessing the first WW ever created by the Children was the NK

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"What triggered the Night King is almost certainly the same thing that brought magic back into the world in general—Dany's dragons hatching".

 

i was thinking along these lines as well. Except, if it was Dany's dragons hatching that caused magic to return to the world, the reason the Night King only then began to move is because only then did his own ability to conjure the dead return to him.

 

If this much is true, he would surely know that dragons will, in fact, enter the fray at some point. Probably around the time he sees Jon doing something crazy.

 

ETA: to add to this, he probably also realizes he needs a way across the wall or his army will not pass. It would explain why he is pretty much just hanging out just north of the wall...Waiting...For dragons.

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And one more thought...

 

The reason he didn't kill Jon and Dany, considering the above, is simple. He knows they are going to try and gather the southern armies as well. That's fine by him. He wants all of them anyways and he thinks his army will take down everyone. All at once. 

The fight will happen at Winterfell I imagine. 

 

ETA: It's just a big ebb and flow. A reset button for mankind. Funny part of it is the world of men could have avoided the entire thing by just ignoring it. But men cannot do that. They feel the need to rule every inch of the land.

 

Which of course is why the White walkers were created to begin with.

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The trap idea makes a lot of sense to me.

The Night King does not have a magical ace up his sleeve to pass the wall: all the time he was waiting for a dragon to help him do that. And Jon finally fell for it and played right into his hands by forcing Dany to bring her dragons north.

It would explain why the White Walkers and their minions never seem to reach the Wall even though everyone else has been travelling around the world in record time.

It would especially explain why this astonishingly far-fetched plan to travel 1000 miles north to the wall, then go search for a wight and capture one, then travel 1000 miles south again to convince Cersei, works time-wise: The undead army never really marched. They were waiting, contrary to what Jon was thinking.

The only issue I have with this is that it gives Dan & Dave too much credit IMO. Maybe I am unfair but I can't really picture them bothering to come up with something that makes this much sense. Not that I believe them incapable of it. But they don't seem to really try. To me it seems that rather than developing the story through logic their method is to imagine scenes they think might look cool, then try to hand-wave the story into somehow connecting these scenes, logic or no.

 

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This dragon trap theory makes almost no sense, as I'm sure the OP knows. 

But everything else makes less sense. The NK even had a chance to turn Thoros into a wight. No one watched out for that, or even looked after him while he was dying, apparently. And the NK wouldn't have needed to save his wights from dying in battle if they hadn't somehow become more fragile than humans. How many wights instantly died from a stab to the stomach or something, and how long did it take to kill Othor? There should have been pieces of wight everywhere, still trying to claw and bite Jon Snow and co. to death.

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3 hours ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

This dragon trap theory makes almost no sense, as I'm sure the OP knows. 

But everything else makes less sense. The NK even had a chance to turn Thoros into a wight. No one watched out for that, or even looked after him while he was dying, apparently. And the NK wouldn't have needed to save his wights from dying in battle if they hadn't somehow become more fragile than humans. How many wights instantly died from a stab to the stomach or something, and how long did it take to kill Othor? There should have been pieces of wight everywhere, still trying to claw and bite Jon Snow and co. to death.

Against Othor, all that was available was regular, castle-forged steel - which was ineffective - and fire, which worked.

This time around, Jon had a Valyrian steel blade in Longclaw, Beric and Thoros set their swords on fire, and everyone else had dragonglass/obsidian weapons in addition to their normal ones.

 

Evidently, on the show, Valyrian steel and obsidian don't just kill the White Walkers, they also are highly effective at disrupting/dispelling/breaking the magics involved in reanimation of the wights.

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11 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

Against Othor, all that was available was regular, castle-forged steel - which was ineffective - and fire, which worked.

This time around, Jon had a Valyrian steel blade in Longclaw, Beric and Thoros set their swords on fire, and everyone else had dragonglass/obsidian weapons in addition to their normal ones.

 

Evidently, on the show, Valyrian steel and obsidian don't just kill the White Walkers, they also are highly effective at disrupting/dispelling/breaking the magics involved in reanimation of the wights.

Hmm. Did we definitely get confirmation that Valyrian steel is more than just good at cutting wights up? If so, we might have half an excuse here. But the flaming swords never actually appeared to burn the wights, which seems to be the requirement, and those with neither fire nor Valyrian steel didn't seem to be using their dragonglass.

But to be honest I'm not that bothered. Zombies always seem to get weaker over time (until you need a character to die, at least) so it's to be expected, like Conservation of Ninjutsu.

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42 minutes ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

Hmm. Did we definitely get confirmation that Valyrian steel is more than just good at cutting wights up? If so, we might have half an excuse here. But the flaming swords never actually appeared to burn the wights, which seems to be the requirement, and those with neither fire nor Valyrian steel didn't seem to be using their dragonglass.

But to be honest I'm not that bothered. Zombies always seem to get weaker over time (until you need a character to die, at least) so it's to be expected, like Conservation of Ninjutsu.

I believe everyone was using dragonglass weapons during the battle, such as Jorah's daggers and Tormund's axe.  Terrible directing IMO to not make that more clear.

10 hours ago, Amris said:

The trap idea makes a lot of sense to me.

The Night King does not have a magical ace up his sleeve to pass the wall: all the time he was waiting for a dragon to help him do that. And Jon finally fell for it and played right into his hands by forcing Dany to bring her dragons north.

It would explain why the White Walkers and their minions never seem to reach the Wall even though everyone else has been travelling around the world in record time.

It would especially explain why this astonishingly far-fetched plan to travel 1000 miles north to the wall, then go search for a wight and capture one, then travel 1000 miles south again to convince Cersei, works time-wise: The undead army never really marched. They were waiting, contrary to what Jon was thinking.

The only issue I have with this is that it gives Dan & Dave too much credit IMO. Maybe I am unfair but I can't really picture them bothering to come up with something that makes this much sense. Not that I believe them incapable of it. But they don't seem to really try. To me it seems that rather than developing the story through logic their method is to imagine scenes they think might look cool, then try to hand-wave the story into somehow connecting these scenes, logic or no.

 

There is a picture going around of when they first show the Night King taking the ice javelin in his hands.  If you notice, there is the NK in the center and to his right there are 2 other white walkers and to his left there are 2 other white walkers.  The 2 to his right both have ice javelins, while the 2 to his left both have the normal swords.  To me it's highly suggestive that it was a trap, considering you have the NK with 1 javelin in his hand and then 2 more- making 3 javelins in total for each of the dragons.

That being said, I agree.  I think this is probably giving D & D too much credit.  Not sure if we will ever get an explanation like this, but I can at least pretend in my head that this is canon.  It was all a trap by the NK lol.

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9 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

There is a picture going around of when they first show the Night King taking the ice javelin in his hands.  If you notice, there is the NK in the center and to his right there are 2 other white walkers and to his left there are 2 other white walkers.  The 2 to his right both have ice javelins, while the 2 to his left both have the normal swords.  To me it's highly suggestive that it was a trap, considering you have the NK with 1 javelin in his hand and then 2 more- making 3 javelins in total for each of the dragons.

We've seen them with similar weapons before, though: https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/c/c7/White_Walker_2x10.jpg

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22 minutes ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

We've seen them with similar weapons before, though: https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/c/c7/White_Walker_2x10.jpg

Maybe somewhat similar but clearly that pic is still something more like a sword.  Like you can tell these ice spears or javelins or whatever they were holding were meant to be thrown.  Not sure you can say the same about that picture.

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1 hour ago, Tagganaro said:

Maybe somewhat similar but clearly that pic is still something more like a sword.  Like you can tell these ice spears or javelins or whatever they were holding were meant to be thrown.  Not sure you can say the same about that picture.

I'm not saying it disproves what you were saying, just that this isn't the only time we've seen them using spears of some kind - that definitely is a spear he's holding in the picture I linked to. He's riding a horse, and earlier in the shot you can see it's touching the ground. It's actually very similar in design to the NK's. The look is different - the shafts seem to be made of different materials. And the NK's spear is just neater, without all the stringy bits. But the heads look the same, and the lengths are similar. The head on the NK's spear is bigger than I think you'd expect on a throwing spear, but that doesn't help us much - he either didn't use a special throwing spear, or he used a special, dragon-killing throwing spear.

White Walkers often seem to use a weapon in a similar style to the stringy spear, but more like a cross between a spear and a sword (I don't know if that's a real thing). Both White Walkers Jon killed had one, and it looks as if the NK carries one too. The blade/spearhead and hilt/shaft both look about 60-80 cm long, and the WW in Hardhome uses is it like a spear, a sword and an axe. They seem to like using spears, even when they really need a sword. Maybe making ice swords is much less practical.

I am warming to the trap idea, though. It definitely makes things more interesting. The only thing is, it doesn't leave the NK looking as smart as he thinks - he was wide open for vaporisation if only someone had thought of it.

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On 8/22/2017 at 3:18 PM, John Meta said:

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.

Why would the Night King even need anyone's help. As far as I am concerned a united Westroes that had a peace and preperatuon for the others for 20s years would still be completly outclassed. He can ressurect animals, humans and they can use weapons. How do you fight thay

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1 hour ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

I'm not saying it disproves what you were saying, just that this isn't the only time we've seen them using spears of some kind - that definitely is a spear he's holding in the picture I linked to. He's riding a horse, and earlier in the shot you can see it's touching the ground. It's actually very similar in design to the NK's. The look is different - the shafts seem to be made of different materials. And the NK's spear is just neater, without all the stringy bits. But the heads look the same, and the lengths are similar. The head on the NK's spear is bigger than I think you'd expect on a throwing spear, but that doesn't help us much - he either didn't use a special throwing spear, or he used a special, dragon-killing throwing spear.

White Walkers often seem to use a weapon in a similar style to the stringy spear, but more like a cross between a spear and a sword (I don't know if that's a real thing). Both White Walkers Jon killed had one, and it looks as if the NK carries one too. The blade/spearhead and hilt/shaft both look about 60-80 cm long, and the WW in Hardhome uses is it like a spear, a sword and an axe. They seem to like using spears, even when they really need a sword. Maybe making ice swords is much less practical.

I am warming to the trap idea, though. It definitely makes things more interesting. The only thing is, it doesn't leave the NK looking as smart as he thinks - he was wide open for vaporisation if only someone had thought of it.

I really do love the trap idea, but even I'm admitting it's probably unlikely to ever be explained or noted (but I really hope it is.)  Your points are well-taken about the similarities between the types of weaponry, but I just found it really interesting that the NK seemed to have these special javelin spears ready as well as those damn dragon-pulling chains lol.  When you look at that picture of the NK with 3 javelins on hand and only that, it certainly implies 3 javelins for 3 dragons.  

Them finding out that wights die when the WW who created/controls them dies was a huge deal and should have played a bigger role in the battle (Obsidian arrows anyone?).  I think the director was trying to imply that's what Jon was going for after Viserion died, but it was really poorly shot and framed so it was tough to see (also Jon immediately abandoned that and started running back towards Drogon anyway so it was unclear).  But you'd think someone would mention to Dany- dracarys the WWs and don't worry about the wights lol.

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47 minutes ago, MilesJames said:

Why would the Night King even need anyone's help. As far as I am concerned a united Westroes that had a peace and preperatuon for the others for 20s years would still be completly outclassed. He can ressurect animals, humans and they can use weapons. How do you fight thay

Without knowing the Night King's agenda, I can only speculate as to why he would need help. From what information has been shown, it seems that the Night King is an unwilling participant in his fate of becoming Night King. Now he is trapped beyond the wall in a fate he doesn't want. He would then need Three-Eyed Raven's help in crossing the wall (which is what I propose this entire scenario was intended to do - provide a dragon to melt through the wall and allow crossing of the Night King and his army) and needs Three-Eyed Raven's help in undoing what the Children of the Forest have done to him, and by extension what they have done to the realms through creating him.

So I wager Night King is secretly in alliance with Three-Eyed Raven*, who is instructing him on what to do in order to undo what the Children of the Forest have done. I realize many people think the Night King is "the evil guy; Westeros' Sauron the Dark" and that all he wants to do is kill, maim, destroy. But I do not think that is what he really wants.

*probably a future Three-Eyed Raven; not in alliance with the present Three-Eyed Raven we see in the current season 7; but is in alliance with Three-Eyed Raven from future episodes, probably the penultimate episode of season 8, or somewhere thereabouts. And that Three-Eyed Raven is also the one instructing the Red Priests. Making Three-Eyed Raven the one guiding "ice and fire/Night King and Red Priests" to bring balance and end the Long Night with the dawn.

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Although the WW are the major threat, and I'm sure there will be some spectacular battle(s) with them to come, I hope this thread of the story is all wrapped up by two or three episodes into S8. They are nasty and dangerous, but they aren't interesting. They don't talk and have no personalities. Get rid of them soon so we can move onto more interesting stuff, such as Cersei v. Daenerys, without zombie threats being a constant distraction.

 

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10 hours ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

The NK even had a chance to turn Thoros into a wight. No one watched out for that, or even looked after him while he was dying, apparently.

As soon as they realize Thoros is dead, Jon says they have to burn him, and Beric flames on his sword to do it.

I'm not sure how they happened to know this immediately after he died, since he seems to have passed away quietly in the middle of a howling storm, and they were all exhausted and freezing and seemed more worried about watching the wights than watching him, but apparently they did. (Maybe when we weren't watching, they stuck a digital thermometer up his ass, and it buzzed Beric's iPhone when his temperature dropped low enough?)

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