Will Killing NK Really Kill All WW?

[UnmaskedLurker]

This past episode showed that killing a White Walker apparently causes all of the wights created by that WW to disintegrate or fall apart. The WW seems to have a "hive mind" with the wights he creates and without the WW alive, the connection is lost and the wights cease to be wights. Beric theorized that killing the Night King will cause all of the other WW to die because the NK created all the other WW and without him, they should go away just like the wights when the WW that created them dies.

I don't follow the logic of this assertion. The WW are not like the wights. Each WW seems to have independent thought and is alive in some sense. The wights are just animated corpses. Without the WW that created them around to send out the "signal" that keeps the wights animated and guided with some sort of plan of action  (which seems to be fairly general sometimes and specific other times), the wights have no way to stay animated.

But the process of creating a WW is different than creating a wight, and so death of the creator might not cause the WW to die. After all, the wights are animated by the WW and have no independent thought or "mind" in any real sense. Whereas, the other WW seem to be independent minds with their own ability to think and act on their own without control from the NK. So if a WW is killed, then there is no "signal" (as I loosely called it above) going out from the WW to keep the wight animated -- as the wight simply is a reanimated dead body -- so the wight falls apart. But if each WW has independent thought and ability to act -- then the death of the NK should not result in the death of the other WW -- just the elimination of any wights that the NK has been animating. 

So is Beric correct? Maybe as a plot convenience, the war on the show will end with killing the NK and having all the other WW die. But given how the show has presented the WW and the wights -- and their differences in terms of apparent consciousness and independent thought -- does it really make sense that death of the NK will result in the death of all of the WW?

[Apoplexy]

According to the show, WW are created when the NK touches a baby (don't know how significant Craster is). So by that logic, it is possible that all WW would be killed if you were to get the NK.

[Khorkalba]

It doesn't make much sense at all. I think the writers are just being lazy and looking for an easy way to end the war without any loose ends.

Then again, the way that the WW are being presented as such an incredibly fragile enemy makes their eventual defeat almost seem too obvious. The dragonglass weakness by itself trivialized them greatly and made them laughable as a threat. This new revelation about the Night King just seems like overkill.

My hope is that this is all just a setup for the WW actually succeeding in eliminating men from Westeros, with the bittersweet ending GRRM referred to being the reemergence of the Children of the Forest.

[UnmaskedLurker]

12 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

According to the show, WW are created when the NK touches a baby (don't know how significant Craster is). So by that logic, it is possible that all WW would be killed if you were to get the NK.

Yes, I understand that this proposition is the basis for Beric's theory that killing NK will eliminate all the WW. I really did understand why Beric thought what he said might be true. I was not asking why Beric said what he said -- I was asking whether it made any logical sense (as I do not think it does).

My point is that it makes no sense because there is a meaningful difference between the WWs and the wights. There is NO reason to believe that the wights disintegrate because the WW that created them is killed merely because that WW was the one that created the wight. Rather -- the wights are not really alive -- they are just reanimated corpses. And so they need some sort of "signal" or "control" from a WW to be animated. Once that WW is gone -- the "control" or "signal" is gone so the wight is gone.

But the other WWs seem to be animated in a completely different way. The WWs are not reanimated corpses. Rather they are living human beings who are converted into WWs. They have independent thought and action -- and appear to be alive. So even if the NK created them -- he is not needed to continually keep them in a state of animation. The other WWs are in their own state of existence -- unlike the wights.

So based on this difference between what the WW and what the wights are -- and the difference in how they seem to be controlled and animated -- death of the NK should NOT result in death of the other WWs. It just does not make any sense at all -- other than at the most superficial level, i.e., death of WW that created wight leads to elimination of the wight -- so death of NK that created other WW should lead to death of that WW. But that simplistic analogy is incredibly weak logic given that the WWs are independently alive by all observation -- while the wights are not. So the logic that "kill the creator and destroy the creation" is not very persuasive logic (although it might be how they resolve the war on the show as the show is not all that concerned with logic much of the time -- but I doubt the books will work the same way as GRRM seems to rely on a little bit more logic -- and I don't think there will be a NK in the books so the entire concept will not apply in the books).

[Jaehaerys Stark]

On ‎8‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 8:49 AM, UnmaskedLurker said:

Yes, I understand that this proposition is the basis for Beric's theory that killing NK will eliminate all the WW. I really did understand why Beric thought what he said might be true. I was not asking why Beric said what he said -- I was asking whether it made any logical sense (as I do not think it does).

My point is that it makes no sense because there is a meaningful difference between the WWs and the wights. There is NO reason to believe that the wights disintegrate because the WW that created them is killed merely because that WW was the one that created the wight. Rather -- the wights are not really alive -- they are just reanimated corpses. And so they need some sort of "signal" or "control" from a WW to be animated. Once that WW is gone -- the "control" or "signal" is gone so the wight is gone.

But the other WWs seem to be animated in a completely different way. The WWs are not reanimated corpses. Rather they are living human beings who are converted into WWs. They have independent thought and action -- and appear to be alive. So even if the NK created them -- he is not needed to continually keep them in a state of animation. The other WWs are in their own state of existence -- unlike the wights.

So based on this difference between what the WW and what the wights are -- and the difference in how they seem to be controlled and animated -- death of the NK should NOT result in death of the other WWs. It just does not make any sense at all -- other than at the most superficial level, i.e., death of WW that created wight leads to elimination of the wight -- so death of NK that created other WW should lead to death of that WW. But that simplistic analogy is incredibly weak logic given that the WWs are independently alive by all observation -- while the wights are not. So the logic that "kill the creator and destroy the creation" is not very persuasive logic (although it might be how they resolve the war on the show as the show is not all that concerned with logic much of the time -- but I doubt the books will work the same way as GRRM seems to rely on a little bit more logic -- and I don't think there will be a NK in the books so the entire concept will not apply in the books).

The bigger question is, at what point did the show explain that WW can create wights?  We have never seen that.  That's the part that gets me.  What we have seen in the show thus far is, the CotF creating WW, and presumably the NK.  I say presumably because there is no guarantee that the guy tied to the tree is the NK.  But that's a whole other theory altogether...

But let's assume that it is.  Ok, so what we have seen is the CotF create the NK.  The NK in turn creates WW from Craster's sons.  We've seen wights raised by the NK.  We've also seen wights reanimate just by being left dead beyond the Wall.  We have never seen an actual WW raise a wight.  As @Khorkalba has mentioned, I think it is just lazy writing and D&D just expect us to accept that killing WW kills wights we've never seen them raise.  It's like, if it's mentioned on the show by a character, then that makes it real and we should just accept it.  Definitely feels forced to me...

[storm.131]

13 hours ago, Jaehaerys Stark said:

The bigger question is, at what point did the show explain that WW can create wights?  We have never seen that.

They also didn't explain on the show how Jon found out that dragonglass could kill Wights.  He just suddenly came out with it in episode 2 of this season.  Until then, dragonglass was lethal to White Walkers but only fire could stop the Wights.

[Consigliere]

No point in thinking too deeply about this. Beric is correct and this is how the army of the dead will be defeated. The writers aren't concerned about internal consistency.

[DixiesArcher]

the foreshadowing was pretty clear kill the nk to win the dawn. 

[Angel Eyes]

On 8/25/2017 at 1:40 PM, Jaehaerys Stark said:

The bigger question is, at what point did the show explain that WW can create wights?  We have never seen that.  That's the part that gets me.  What we have seen in the show thus far is, the CotF creating WW, and presumably the NK.  I say presumably because there is no guarantee that the guy tied to the tree is the NK.  But that's a whole other theory altogether...

But let's assume that it is.  Ok, so what we have seen is the CotF create the NK.  The NK in turn creates WW from Craster's sons.  We've seen wights raised by the NK.  We've also seen wights reanimate just by being left dead beyond the Wall.  We have never seen an actual WW raise a wight.  As @Khorkalba has mentioned, I think it is just lazy writing and D&D just expect us to accept that killing WW kills wights we've never seen them raise.  It's like, if it's mentioned on the show by a character, then that makes it real and we should just accept it.  Definitely feels forced to me...

The show explains that NK can make wights ... Here.

[BalerionTheCat]

18 hours ago, Consigliere said:

No point in thinking too deeply about this. Beric is correct and this is how the army of the dead will be defeated. The writers aren't concerned about internal consistency.

This is clearly how the show will defeat the Night. I say, find a good guy with a bow (Anguy?), or 50 men,get some dragon-glass arrows, and done.

But we will have to endure a good deal a flamethrower dragons before Jon finishes the NK with his magic sword. In fact, show wise, the Long Night could end anytime you want. I'm sure it will be different in the books. For one, the NK only exists in legends.

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

On 8/23/2017 at 4:49 PM, UnmaskedLurker said:

This past episode showed that killing a White Walker apparently causes all of the wights created by that WW to disintegrate or fall apart. The WW seems to have a "hive mind" with the wights he creates and without the WW alive, the connection is lost and the wights cease to be wights. Beric theorized that killing the Night King will cause all of the other WW to die because the NK created all the other WW and without him, they should go away just like the wights when the WW that created them dies.

I don't follow the logic of this assertion. The WW are not like the wights. Each WW seems to have independent thought and is alive in some sense. The wights are just animated corpses. Without the WW that created them around to send out the "signal" that keeps the wights animated and guided with some sort of plan of action  (which seems to be fairly general sometimes and specific other times), the wights have no way to stay animated.

But the process of creating a WW is different than creating a wight, and so death of the creator might not cause the WW to die. After all, the wights are animated by the WW and have no independent thought or "mind" in any real sense. Whereas, the other WW seem to be independent minds with their own ability to think and act on their own without control from the NK. So if a WW is killed, then there is no "signal" (as I loosely called it above) going out from the WW to keep the wight animated -- as the wight simply is a reanimated dead body -- so the wight falls apart. But if each WW has independent thought and ability to act -- then the death of the NK should not result in the death of the other WW -- just the elimination of any wights that the NK has been animating. 

So is Beric correct? Maybe as a plot convenience, the war on the show will end with killing the NK and having all the other WW die. But given how the show has presented the WW and the wights -- and their differences in terms of apparent consciousness and independent thought -- does it really make sense that death of the NK will result in the death of all of the WW?

i think we will see a battle between the walkers and the key warriors while the wights are kept busy by dragons. All the walkers will be killed individually. 

 

the only sense in which killing the NK will end the war is in the conventional decapitation strategy of war.

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

On 8/26/2017 at 4:52 PM, Consigliere said:

No point in thinking too deeply about this. Beric is correct and this is how the army of the dead will be defeated. The writers aren't concerned about internal consistency.

they've also shown that the walkers aren't unbeatable swordsmen if you have a valyrian sword. Jon has killed a couple now

[Jaehaerys Stark]

On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 5:11 PM, Angel Eyes said:

The show explains that NK can make wights ... Here.

I didn't say the NK.  Eveybody saw the Hardhomme episode.  That's a no brainer.  I said the show has never shown us that WW can create wights...

[SuperMario]

This is how the war will end. All they need is a Frodo to throw the ring into Mount Doom and all the wights and white walkers will magically die. Sad that this is the only way they can end it, but with only six episodes left, I guess they don't have much other choice.

My question is, presuming the NK knows that if he dies, all is lost, why doesn't he just stay away from the battle? Give his dragon to some other WW and he can stand back and raise the dead from a safer vantage point?

[btfu806]

Most likely this is how the show will end, yes. I hope the book doesn't go this route, but with the accelerated pace of the series, it seems the way they intend on ending the WWs.

[Angel Eyes]

2 hours ago, Jaehaerys Stark said:

I didn't say the NK.  Eveybody saw the Hardhomme episode.  That's a no brainer.  I said the show has never shown us that WW can create wights...

Well, they did. Remember the pilot episode with the little girl wight? 

By the way, did you like the link I put in? 

[Jaehaerys Stark]

1 hour ago, Angel Eyes said:

Well, they did. Remember the pilot episode with the little girl wight? 

By the way, did you like the link I put in? 

In Season 1, ep. 1 we see the girl, already dead, tied to a tree.  Then we see her as a wight.  But, as the show has explained time and again, if you die beyond the Wall and your body is not burned, you turn into a wight automatically.  It's the reason Wildlings burn their dead.  So you don't see the WW turn her.  That's what I'm trying to get across.  We have seen the NK turn a Craster son into a WW by touvh, and we have seen the NK raise the dead at Hardhomme.  We have never seen a WW turn any dead into wights.

You asked if I liked your link was to the Hardhomme scene.  I mentioned Hardhomme in my last post. Did I miss something?  Was there something else. I apologize but I don't get the question I guess...

[Angel Eyes]

There was a link to a video on YouTube of the ending of Hardhome, as the Night King raises the dead... set to the tune of Thriller.

[Jaehaerys Stark]

10 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

There was a link to a video on YouTube of the ending of Hardhome, as the Night King raises the dead... set to the tune of Thriller.

Lol! I am at work so I had the volume down.  I'll definitely check it out again with my headphones in now.

[Winds of Winter blow cold]

WW's  might revert back to human.