(spoilers) Theory about the Night King...

[ummester]

21 minutes ago, AnarchoPrimitiv said:

But the only counterpoint to that is the fact that the Andals never conquered the north, and according to A World of Ice and Fire, the North was never in danger of falling to the andals like everywhere else in Westeros.  Also, your theory is incompatible with the timeline...the Last hero was a first man who had helped to end the long night 8,000 years ago and defeat the white walkers (before the Andals ever even kknew about westeros), so if the Last Hero had defeated the white walkers, how could he himself be turned into the first white walker? 

the timeline is incompatible with itself.

If the pact was formed 10000 YA and the White Walkers came 8000 YA, then they came during the pact, which apparently lasted 4000 years. If the pact was about the Children and First men sharing the lands and the White Walkers were created to stop men chopping down trees, you would think that means the pact was broken during the age of heroes - it doesn't make sense. if the pact is in place, why create White Walkers?

[House Cambodia]

40 minutes ago, AnarchoPrimitiv said:

Just so everyone knows, the show creators refer to the main white walker as the Night's King, but they have clearly stated in an interview that even though they refer to him as the Night's King, HE IS NOT the historical figure of the Night's King aka The 13th Lord Commander of the nigt's watch (Old nan said to Bran that many guess that the Night's King, the historical figure, was an Umber or a Bolton, but she specifically says that he was a Stark).  I don't mention any of this to support or disprove any theories, I only mention it because it's obvious that a lot of commentors are passing off incorrect information as fact.

Quite so, point well made. GRRM even leaves it open that the NK never even existed. In addition, the Three-Eyed Crow in the show is NOT Bloodraven. That's why I'm not worried about D&D 'spoiling' the book - there are so many points at which they've diverged, conflated and dumbed down that watching S6 gives me no clues as to how things will turn out in TWOW.

[ummester]

1 hour ago, House Cambodia said:

Interesting you should say that. I created a thread to put forward my theory that I think is regarded to way beyond the pale by most readers. Basically I'm suggesting that the saga - or at least the mythical beginning and the endgame read like an allegory of man's relationship with the Earth. The impending Long Night represents the effects of man-made climate change, and the Others our rape of the environment and the 'Gaian' response. The period between the beginning and end - the 'game of thrones' is us focussed on our petty interests driven by selfishness, greed , jealousy, ignorance, unaware of what we're doing to the planet. So, in ASOIAF we're heading towards a Noah's Flood/Revelations scenario. The Stark siblings will be the 'family of Noah', leading the very few survivors, with Bran guiding them back to a right relationship with nature. The Others, then, are not 'evil' - they are the Earth/Planetos righting the imbalance caused by the real perpetrators, humans.

Yes, I agree that, overall, this is what ASoIaF/GoTS is about. Not sure that the Starks are like Noah's family - but it is an end times story, an apocalypse, ragnarok, great flood, revelations type of thing - it isn't a story of a saviour banishing an evil figure, like Harry Potter, or Star Wars and so on - it's concerned more with the pagan idea of a god for every element in nature than the dualistic idea of God and Satan.

[House Cambodia]

1 minute ago, ummester said:

it's concerned more with the pagan idea of a god for every element in nature than the dualistic idea of God and Satan.

Or at least that's the outlook of the Starks, the North, the older races, which is where the author's sympathy lies.

[ummester]

7 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

Quite so, point well made. GRRM even leaves it open that the NK never even existed. In addition, the Three-Eyed Crow in the show is NOT Bloodraven. That's why I'm not worried about D&D 'spoiling' the book - there are so many points at which they've diverged, conflated and dumbed down that watching S6 gives me no clues as to how things will turn out in TWOW.

There are 2 things happening.

1) the show has to dumb the back story down, so as not to lose the viewers. Nights King was made because humans kept cutting down trees is the simple version of the successive human invasions in the books.

2) GRRM has changed his mind on some things.

[solomon585858]

I think Night King can not be killed by either val.steel or dragonglass unlike other WWs. His core is dragonglass but other WWs it seems in the show are created by him. Something tells me that only Jon would be able to kill him with some sort of special weapon.

And one thing I noticed..WWs use significantly more armor than they used in earlier seasons. In this episode Cotf couldn't pierce through WWs armor and Meera killed the WW only because her spear landed on its neck. It wasn't protected. I feel that in the final battle all WWs will be protected by the armor form the head to their legs so it would be almost impossible to kill them even using dragonglass and val.steel. Otherwise it would be too simple: launch arrows with dragonglass and kill them.

[Neds Secret]

8 hours ago, YOVMO said:

I don't know if that is enough of an answer. This isn't Dumbledore seeing through Harry's invisibility cloak.

In what sense is Bran actually "there" It isn't like he is there but invisible. He can walk. Bloodraven can leave the tree. What is it that this incredibly powerful dude is seeing? Is it that he is seeing his essence? Is he seeing the disturbance that Bran's appearance at a particular time happens (the way you don't see a rock dropped in the water but you know it is there because you can see the ripples?)

I have similar issues and questions

[lancerman]

16 hours ago, Grayce Hornwood said:

I think we can all agree that this episode held a number of revelations. Whether those turn out to be true in the books remains to be seen. But as far as the show is concerned, I wanted to put forth some thoughts I had about the Night King.

My Unsullied SO actually put forth the question: "Who is the man that the CotF turned into the Night King?" His limited knowledge of the books—only what I've told him—is enough that he understands the Children have been in Westeros for thousands of years, and that their main enemy was the First Men. Once he brought this up, it got us thinking. The man that the CotF turned into the NK was likely one of the First Men (possibly a Stark ancestor?), who are known to have strong warging and greenseeing abilities. Do you all think it's possible that the NK was a warg, and after he was turned by the CotF, whatever magic they used just amplified his abilities? To the point that he can actually "warg" (not sure if that term would still apply) corpses (aka the wights)? Might also explain how he's able to touch Bran inside the vision, the way that the 3ER has been able to communicate with him through visions in the past.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.  

ETA: Just to clarify for everyone, I am referring to the Night's King on the show, not the one mentioned in the books.

There isn't even evidence that that proficient character became the Nights King 

[Dragonsmurf]

10 hours ago, Dc Castillo said:

 

Could be made up.  but according to the Game of Thrones wiki, they list him as the 13th commander.  Idk if this is supposed to be taken as truth but it seems as a legit source for the show.

http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Night's_King

 

Just saw this quote below, so maybe the show is deciding to just make the Night's King the original Walker

I don't think the Night's King was actually a white walker/married to a white walker or whatever. I think he was a Lord Commander that decided to side with the free folk(not unlike Mance). Over the centuries, myths and legends about him evolved.

[Neds Secret]

10 hours ago, Grayce Hornwood said:

If it was the present, then I wonder where that dead weirwood might be. It would have to be close by for the WW and wights to get to Bran in the cave so quickly. Also, I didn't think the NK knew where Bran was, did he?

I want to know why he cares, what have we seen Bran do that could threaten the Nights King? Unless the Nights King has to defeat Bran in a trivia contest made up of questions about Hodor and Ned Starks childhood. Seriously but, if  that is what happened to Hodor to  turn Willas into "Hodor" then that is what always must have happened to create Hodor. Hodor had to be who he was to be in the position of being around Winterfell when Bran was crippled to be assigned the task  of carrying  Bran around and to sort of be Brans legs. Hodor was also left with Bran when the Other Starks headed south because of his disabilities nobody felt threatened by Hodor. Then Hodor played a huge role in transporting Bran to the cave, and if Bran never made it to the cave he would not have had the vision that caused Hodor to be traumatised and become Hodor, so it was like a big circle of time, so that's why the 3 Eyed crow chose that vision at that time because if it did not happen like that none of them would be there. That is the how explained but that leaves me with the most important and frustrating question that the show has failed to answer for me which is the why? Why is Bran important, and why does the Nights King seem to fear him. My only thought that could explain why it's important is that if it depicts Brans ability to warg people in the past (that's if he was warging Hodor) then that would concern the Nights King. Bran could just go back to any point in time and take over anybody's body and get them to do something different, for instance he could go back and warg into Leaf and stop her from creating the Nights King and instead of stabbing him in the heart with the Crystal just chop his head off, thereby destroying him before he even exists, like the original Terminator wanted to do to John Connor. I could see the Nights King fearing this, but it feels rather far fetched to me. 

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

14 hours ago, HodoringHodor said:

The actor who played the man who was turned into a white walker is the same actor who plays the Night's King. No idea if that's significant, but I'd imagine that's the Night's King they created yes.

Given they are not exactly short of actors, yes i think that is highly significant in suggesting Show Night King was made by the COTF

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

2 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

Quite so, point well made. GRRM even leaves it open that the NK never even existed. In addition, the Three-Eyed Crow in the show is NOT Bloodraven. 

In the confines of a Book GRRM doesn't have to have  a leader figure of the Others. Its both necessary for tv and works fantastically well

[Squall]

9 minutes ago, God-Emperor of Yi Ti said:

Given they are not exactly short of actors, yes i think that is highly significant in suggesting Show Night King was made by the COTF

I think in the show there is only one NK and he has lived for thousands of years. I think we'll have to write off the Pact (even though it's in the history&lore extras of the DVD/BluRay). The FM were cutting trees, the CotF made the WW. Eventually the WW (or more specifically the NK with his followers behind him) were pushed back and someone put up the Wall. I wouldn't be surprised if that's Bran the Builder for simplicity's sake.

The tales about the 13th Lord Commander and his Queen are omitted and I don't think we'll have to connect that with the show, it's just one guy, not a succession story of the Frozen Kingdom.

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

20 minutes ago, Neds Secret said:

I want to know why he cares, what have we seen Bran do that could threaten the Nights King? Unless the Nights King has to defeat Bran in a trivia contest made up of questions about Hodor and Ned Starks childhood. Seriously but, if  that is what happened to Hodor to  turn Willas into "Hodor" then that is what always must have happened to create Hodor. Hodor had to be who he was to be in the position of being around Winterfell when Bran was crippled to be assigned the task  of carrying  Bran around and to sort of be Brans legs. Hodor was also left with Bran when the Other Starks headed south because of his disabilities nobody felt threatened by Hodor. Then Hodor played a huge role in transporting Bran to the cave, and if Bran never made it to the cave he would not have had the vision that caused Hodor to be traumatised and become Hodor, so it was like a big circle of time, so that's why the 3 Eyed crow chose that vision at that time because if it did not happen like that none of them would be there. That is the how explained but that leaves me with the most important and frustrating question that the show has failed to answer for me which is the why? Why is Bran important, and why does the Nights King seem to fear him. My only thought that could explain why it's important is that if it depicts Brans ability to warg people in the past (that's if he was warging Hodor) then that would concern the Nights King. Bran could just go back to any point in time and take over anybody's body and get them to do something different, for instance he could go back and warg into Leaf and stop her from creating the Nights King and instead of stabbing him in the heart with the Crystal just chop his head off, thereby destroying him before he even exists, like the original Terminator wanted to do to John Connor. I could see the Nights King fearing this, but it feels rather far fetched to me. 

Its not Bran specifically that the NK views as the adversary, its the Greenseers. There was an obvious importance attached to the killing of the 3ER. Suggesting the 3ER has been fighting the NK for a long time- maybe its the weakening of the 3ER that allowed the renaissance of the Others.  The effect of him not being around will be soon apparent. 

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

5 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

If the Night King really is a greenser and after Bran has been mark, does that mean that he can follow Bran across visions and anywhere else he goes ? How does that influence Bran's actions and his further development ?

yeah could all go a bit Freddy Krueger..

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

3 hours ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

the show has obviously changed another element to this story.  Everything I'm hearing from the rewatch is the man that was tied up against the Weirwood getting the obsidian driven into his chest is in fact the Night King in the show. Beinhoff and Weiss pretty much confirm it without saying it directly.  

 

That just sucks, they are dumbing down the story.

That is at the very least premature considering we have read diddly squat on the Others  in ASOIAF for 15 years or more.... 

[grufolo]

One thought is:

I may be wrong, but the first men were more of the brown/dark complexion, while the sacrificed was a clear blonde (see the actor's figure in the first page of this thread).

 

As far as i can remember, it were the Andals who arrived to Westeros before  the last Long Night. I wonder if the sacrifice is not an Andal, instead of a first man.

 

The magic used to fight the first men was the one that caused the collapse of the Arm, but if my memory serves me, it was to fight the Andal invasion that the Others were created.

 

Meh?

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

11 hours ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

I think it's safe to say now we know why dragon glass and valaryian steel can kill them.  It's because they were created by magic and obsidian.  

Also how many times is that 1 white walker gonna be killed?  That's like 4 times now right? 

weren't there 12 of Crasters sons? 

[Neds Secret]

5 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

In the scene where Bran see the army of the undead and the White Walkers, it is clear that none of the WW could see him, the same goes for the undead. Except for the Night King.

From what the show has presented to us it is safe to assume that only a greenseer can see another one inside the visions. As shown in the visions shared by 3ER and Bran, and as shown in the last episode the Night King. If you go back in the scenes with Jojen and Bran the same happens, both Jojen and Bran can interact with each other in the green dreams.

If the Night King really is a greenser and after Bran has been mark, does that mean that he can follow Bran across visions and anywhere else he goes ? How does that influence Bran's actions and his further development ?

Does that mean it goes both ways? What If Bran is stronger and pursues the Nights Kjng through visions? Perhaps Bran can steal the Nights Kings wights off of him?

[God-Emperor of Yi Ti]

3 minutes ago, Neds Secret said:

Does that mean it goes both ways? What If Bran is stronger and pursues the Nights Kjng through visions? Perhaps Bran can steal the Nights Kings wights off of him?

its seems likely that at some level the 3ER and the NK have been duking it out in the greensight.