So, the NK has a dragon. The NK can raise the dead. Westeros doesn't burn their dead. What is stopping him from just flying on his dragon all over Westeros and raising the dead?

[Cron]

2 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

We've seen some wights on the TV show that are pretty close to being pure skeletons. And I think we would see a lot more of them if the cost of skeleton CGI wasn't so much greater than the cost of zombie makeup and costume.

Hmmm.  Maybe (regarding the cost).  But I think the undead have got to have at least some meat on them in order for the Night King to do his thing.

I can't recall any indication of animated skeletons in books or show.

2 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

If we're going to try to apply logic to reanimated corpses then I don't think a few shreds of muscle or patches of skin would make a difference. They shouldn't be able to stand up and walk, let alone fight. So whatever magic is holding them together and making them move in a heavily decayed state should work in a fully decayed state.

Maybe, but organic flesh and muscle at least have the potential to sustain life (of SOME sort or variety)

Whereas I don't think bones do.

Maybe time will tell.  Maybe we'll see a pure skeleton undead, but I don't think so.  I think that's a different kind of creature altogether in "fiction."

2 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

The only limitation that actually makes sense to me would be if a corpse is buried too far beneath solid earth for the magic to reach.

Maybe, but it would have to be pretty deep.

Consider what the Night King did at Hardhome.  He raised his arms, and was reanimating corpses FAR away from him, probably 100 yards or more.

If he has a range limit, I think the corpses would have to be buried VERY deeply.

2 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

As for the lack of numbers... haven't the Wildlings been burning their dead for many generations? This might explain why AoD recruitment has been limited.

Mmmmm...I don't think the Wildlings burned many of their own dead after Stannis rocked their world.  I think there were only a few thousand left, and I don't see a few thousand people burning about 95,000 people, especially in so short a time before Stannis was holding them captive.   

[Megorova]

14 hours ago, Cron said:

My guess is that, at a bare minimum, there has to be at least some meat on the bones.

Don't think I've seen any pure skeletons in the Army of the Dead.

How about the one that threw itself on Jon's sword in S7E6, when Jon was covering captured wight? It was pure skeleton. Also when Bran found 3ER, among wights that nearly caught him were also several skeletons.

[Lost Time]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

How about the one that threw itself on Jon's sword in S7E6, when Jon was covering captured wight? It was pure skeleton. Also when Bran found 3ER, among wights that nearly caught him were also several skeletons.

Yeah, the undead that were coming out of the ground when Bran and co were ambushed were looking pretty skeletal. Minimal to no flesh on them. Video below. 

https://youtu.be/F4zOAXoQaFo?t=127

[tmug]

I wondered why Jon never informed the special counsel in Kings Landing to start burning their dead rather than burying them. I think that that is an important step to mitigating the Night King threat. The Night King's ultimate plan may have always been to let the Seven Kingdoms kill each other and then use the dead to get rid of the rest of the people. We saw how he planned it all out to get Viserion as his Wight, proving that he is the most strategic villain in the show so far.

I would hope that he did at least tell Dany to burn all of the corpses from the Field of Fire battle. Easy enough when you have a dragon. 

Also interesting that he never even thought about burning Rickon's body after the Battle of the Bastards. Will the dead Starks make a return when the Night King comes to Winterfell? Jon may have to fight Ned, Rickon, Lyanna and the whole Stark gang in the crypts if it gets that far. Unless their is some special magic protecting the Winterfell Crypts, could the Undead Starks make a hero's return to life ala Uncle Benjen who died but never turned completely Wight?

[Fearodh]

Night King has patience, and so far he seems kinda cautious. Only attacked the wall when he could take it down instantly, not the kind to do things in a rushed way.

One single dragonglass arrow would end him and all his wights with him. So while he could win lots by flying south and raising undead, he could fuck up real big too. He knows Dany has dragons as well.

So I guess he will only act if it seems really safe and otherwise stay close to his army to cover his back if required.

[falcotron]

12 minutes ago, Fearodh said:

Night King has patience, and so far he seems kinda cautious. Only attacked the wall when he could take it down instantly, not the kind to do things in a rushed way.

One single dragonglass arrow would end him and all his wights with him. So while he could win lots by flying south and raising undead, he could fuck up real big too. He knows Dany has dragons as well.

So I guess he will only act if it seems really safe and otherwise stay close to his army to cover his back if required.

Proof that the Night King is related to Doran. He mixes Stark blood with Martell blood. His truly is the song of ice and fire, and also water. And probably earth, too, and wood and spirit and Leeloo and the other various fifth elements from different cultures.

[Cron]

3 hours ago, Megorova said:

How about the one that threw itself on Jon's sword in S7E6, when Jon was covering captured wight? It was pure skeleton. Also when Bran found 3ER, among wights that nearly caught him were also several skeletons.

Oh, good job, and good catches if you are right!!

How sure are you that they had no meat on their bones, though?  Would you say 100%?

[TwiceBorn]

18 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

I expect his army will number millions and be spread across Westeros like a plague before he is eventually defeated.

The writers have already set up the idea that killing the NK will kill all wights, which wouldn't be necessary if the army was going to stay fairly modest in size and remain all grouped together in one place.

NK will go down like Balor.

"Kill him! KILL HIM!"

Yup D&D loved Myth: The Fallen Lords.

[Megorova]

2 hours ago, tmug said:

I wondered why Jon never informed the special counsel in Kings Landing to start burning their dead rather than burying them.

Also interesting that he never even thought about burning Rickon's body after the Battle of the Bastards.

First wights on this side of the Wall, were those who died on that side, and whose bodies were brought to Castle Black. So maybe the rule of resurection is that on this side of the Wall, bodies should be freshly killed to be recruited into Undead Army. That may be the reason why Jon isn't worried about old corpses.

[Megorova]

2 hours ago, Fearodh said:

One single dragonglass arrow would end him

Or it may make him stronger. Considering that piece of dragonglass in his heart made him immortal and all-magically-powerful.

He's also immune to fire and dragonfire. So potentially the only thing that could kill him is Valyrian steel. Or maybe even that won't be enough. Maybe even Valyrian steel can't harm him. Probably there is a reason that to defeat NK, people need Prince that was promissed. If all that is needed to defeat NK is just a random sword made from VS, and random warrior to wield that sword, then there wouldn't be a prophecy about Azor Ahai. Maybe Jon has some sort of special power, given to him by Lord of Light, maybe he's the only one who can defeat NK.

[Megorova]

1 hour ago, Cron said:

Oh, good job, and good catches if you are right!!

How sure are you that they had no meat on their bones, though?  Would you say 100%?

The one from S7E6 was pure bones. Though 'pure' wouldn't be a correct word, they were yellowy-orange.

It was after burning wight tried to set on fire captured wight. Jon killed that wight, and then skeleton wight threw itself on Jon's sword. After that Jon killed another wight, and the guy that was behind that wight, fell off a cliff and was torn apart.

[tmug]

12 minutes ago, Megorova said:

First wights on this side of the Wall, were those who died on that side, and whose bodies were brought to Castle Black. So maybe the rule of resurection is that on this side of the Wall, bodies should be freshly killed to be recruited into Undead Army. That may be the reason why Jon isn't worried about old corpses.

Hehe, it's a good theory but the show has been pretty obvious with some the important details as of late ie. killing the White Walker kills those he summoned, killing the NK is the ultimate end game, NK set up Jon and co. to get an undead dragon, Rhaegar/Lyanna lineage for Jon.

If I were Jon, I would err on the safe side and let everyone know every detail about what they know about the Undead army. There has been no hint of the Night King's powers only working North of the Wall. That would be far too naive to ignore that major detail. Dead is dead north of the wall or south of the wall by the information we have from the show now. It would be kind of cheesy if the dead south of the wall rise up to fight along side Jon/Dany but ya never know!

So by your logic, are you saying that Jon just buried all those corpses after the Battle of the Bastards? That would be no sense. I still need an explanation as to why the show made a point in showing Jon ordering for Rickon be buried in the Crypts of Winterfell, "where he belongs" he says something to that effect. He should have burned him so that he doesn't come back as a Wight, a far worse situation to have to see your little brother start fighting as a Wight.  

They burned the Nights Watch brothers and technically they were south of the Wall at Castle Black. 

[Cron]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

The one from S7E6 was pure bones. Though 'pure' wouldn't be a correct word, they were yellowy-orange.

It was after burning wight tried to set on fire captured wight. Jon killed that wight, and then skeleton wight threw itself on Jon's sword. After that Jon killed another wight, and the guy that was behind that wight, fell off a cliff and was torn apart.

Whoa, holy cow, you've got a great eye for detail!!  I'm beginning to wonder if I saw that episode at all!!

A burning wight tried to set a captured wight on fire??  Then a skeleton threw itself on Jon's sword, then another guy fell off a cliff and was torn apart, huh?

But you're saying only one was a skeleton, right?

I've got to watch that whole scene again.  Sounds like I must have been kind of distracted the first time.

But hey, in my defense, maybe I was taking notes at the time.  I tend to pay closer attention when there is dialogue than when there is just pure action.  I like action scenes fine, but dialogue is where most character development occurs, I think, and that's my favorite part of a story.

[Megorova]

59 minutes ago, tmug said:

There has been no hint of the Night King's powers only working North of the Wall.

Of course not. I'm sure that his power is working everywhere (now that the Wall is gone). What I meant is that maybe he can resurect only fresh corpses, few days old at the most. Thus Rickon won't become part of NK's army. And some wights look old and badly preserved because they were 'raised' long ago, and with course of time they became 'worn out'.

[Khorkalba]

6 hours ago, Cron said:

Maybe, but it would have to be pretty deep.

Consider what the Night King did at Hardhome.  He raised his arms, and was reanimating corpses FAR away from him, probably 100 yards or more.

If he has a range limit, I think the corpses would have to be buried VERY deeply.

In the books, the force that awakens the dead is described as the "cold" that accompanies the Others, so 100 yards isn't much of a problem if the corpses are lying on the surface exposed to the cold, or buried under a shallow layer of snow.

6 feet under solid earth could be more difficult for the "cold" to penetrate to though, not to mention hard for the revived wights to claw their way out of.

[Megorova]

5 minutes ago, Cron said:

But you're saying only one was a skeleton, right?

I noticed that one because that scene looked ridiculous. Flying bones

[Dragonslack]

Seems likely he will have lots and lots of undead minions, and then when all hope is lost jon jumps surprisingly on a dragon and destroys the controls in the mother ship, err, I mean the ww, nk and they all fall to the ground, re-dead.

[falcotron]

3 minutes ago, Dragonslack said:

Seems likely he will have lots and lots of undead minions, and then when all hope is lost jon jumps surprisingly on a dragon and destroys the controls in the mother ship, err, I mean the ww, nk and they all fall to the ground, re-dead.

That only works if there's a companion of Jon's who we see bumbling around and accidentally destroying thousands of wights at the same time as Jon's bumbling around and accidentally—I mean not accidentally, but totally because of the Force of Ice and Fire you guys—destroying the computer.

I'm not sure who they could use. Even with the accent, Pod-Pod could never be annoying enough for the role.

[no_one_...]

It's not clear at this point if the ICE dragon uses a type of fire or not, so I'm not sure if killing w/the dragon would provide troops or not.  

That said if it were not like fire and he could raise the corpses, he could take some of the Sons of Craster on his new toy to the Riverlands etc kill a bunch and not raise them him self but with the Others (so he doesn't have to waste time leading the new armies).  He could have armies all over the nearly completely unprepared South.  He could do something similar by flying across the Narrow Sea.  I guess the Children's magic could limit his range.   Really at this point short of Bran Warging into the Dead dragon (or Sam finding some Scooby Doo solution, eg Prophecies not in the show for 7 years get revealed for last minute plot's sake) they're pretty screwed.

Also, Danny and presumably her Dragons can't be burned.  So, in theory if they die there's no way to prevent them from turning (assuming any Dragon Glass put in the corpses is removable prior to the turning).   This would make them a big target.  Perhaps he just wants an ice princess to kiss him and break the curse ...

 

 

[Cron]

1 hour ago, Khorkalba said:

In the books, the force that awakens the dead is described as the "cold" that accompanies the Others, so 100 yards isn't much of a problem if the corpses are lying on the surface exposed to the cold, or buried under a shallow layer of snow.

6 feet under solid earth could be more difficult for the "cold" to penetrate to though, not to mention hard for the revived wights to claw their way out of.

Ah, okay.  So maybe it's not just a matter of distance, but also what barriers occupy that distance.

That could make sense, especially if the power to revive is carried with the cold (certainly it's true that frozen ground usually only goes to a certain depth, after which the ground above is acting like insulation)