what hope white walkers/wights against dragons?

[WolfOfWinter]

How will a dragon rider be able to spot an Other hundreds of feet up in the air in complete darkness while also having to contend with extremely cold weather? Is he/she planning on burning everything in their path? Inventing night goggles? Do we know how effective dragons are in the cold or during a blizzard? Do we still believe the Others aren't impervious to fire after the latest episode? Can dragons be wighted? Is the NK a greenseer, in which case, is he aware of the dragons? Hasn't he and his soldiers planned anything in the thousands of years they've been alive? I think people are overestimating the dragons and underestimating the Others. Drogon was almost killed by a dozen SotH. On the ground, the dragons are fucked if they're attacked by a hundred wights who won't feel any fear. 

For budgetary reasons alone I don't think the dragons will play much of a role in fighting the Others. Drogon? Probably. But even that will probably be limited.

[Ser Lepus]

I have heard (and read) this question several times, and I always answer the same: Westeros is a continent, there are an unknown number of White Walkers (they could be dozens to thousands. I would say) but the number of wights they could create goes up to millions.

Dany has three dragons, which she still can't control, and she can't ride all three at the same time. And even if she found another two riders, they would have an even harder time learning to control the dragons.

But even if she were able to perfectly control her dragons, they are far too few to watch over a whole continent. The White Walkers will come at night to every little hamlet, village and town in Westeros, kill and turn everybody into wights, take them to the wilderness, and repeat again every night until there is nobody alive left in Westeros. Dany can't be everywhere at the same time, it would be like trying to control Afghanistan with just three Apache helicopters, if Afghanistan where the size of South America.

The best Dany could achieve on her own, barring magical shenanigans (like killing the Night King and having all other White Walkers melt into a puddle) is to hold a small corner of Westeros. Of course, if she managed to unite all the factions into a single army armed with obsidian and fire, they could achieve more, but we are speaking of dragons here, not of human armies.

 

 

 

[storm.131]

On 24 May 2016 at 7:58 PM, blckp said:

dragonfire can even melt stones, dragons have magical fire which was used to make valyrian/dragon steel and dragonglass

without ice dragon/spider, WW would lose badly

 

Good point.  I hope that the magical aspect of dragon fire would to kill the White Walkers even though they are not affected by ordinary fire.  As it stands, they have way too many advantages over human beings for my liking.

[Dizzy Walker]

If the dragons land, they would be swarmed about the wights. I doubt the dragons can spit out fire quick enough to protect itself. Dragon fire is slow, and they show the wights being quick,very quick and don't stop. LIke a big insect being taken down by ants....Remember the scene at Hardhome when something whammed into the gate? We didn't see it what that was, so I don't think we have seen the full might of the WW yet. They scared the COTF, who had enough magic to make land masses collapse into the sea.. 

on the other hand, do we know what a huge dragon can do?  Except for torching a field or a castle, and having one-on-one type fights, we have not seen or heard of dragons fighting all that much. Drogon did not end up being the big winner in the pit when he saved Dany.

 

[Smoke317]

I can definitely see a scenario where one of the dragons while on the ground gets overrun by hundreds of wights and killed.  Enter the nights King who raises said dragon from the dead and mounts it. That could be a visually powerful scene. The dread of our heroes seeing that they themselves will have to contend with a dragon. You figure we have to get some dragon vs dragon aerial combat. 

[Ibbison from Ibben]

The dragons will be caught in the webs the Giant Ice Spiders weave.

Fortunately, the natural enemies of Giant Ice Spiders are Giant Cave Bats, which Sansa will be able to warg due to her Whent heritage.

[Battle Kitten]

n/m

[tormund's beard]

it depends on a couple of things.

we've seen WW control fire maybe dragonfire is magical and can't be controlled.

WW can control ice and wind, if powerful enough a blizzard can ground a dragon in a bad way.

what we do know is that dragons could be usefull to clear the wights by the truckload (like what they did in astapor) BUT grounded dragon vs horde of wights, i think the wights have the advantage.

[robasp2]

The nights king was supposed to have thousands of wights, it was so stupid to show him turn up at Bran's with so few..

The CGI team really messed up this season wirh multiplication. So many damn ships in the iron islands and so fvcking few wights.. 

Well you can argue that he invited only a handful of his "crew", but it didnt seem terrifyng at all..

With Daenerys dragons, these guys are done.

Wights have no strategy, they movr in large groups and will be cooked like the fools against Aegon..

Now they are killing white walkers easily too.. just some dragon glass for WW and fire for whights.

There arent even enough WW as of now..

If D&D want to make it a strong war, they must start building it up. It sucks now.

[Nendy Stark]

Dude. White Walkers can barely kill men, much less dragons.  The white walkers in the show are some of the most useless beings alive.

White Walker #1: A fat coward sneaks up on him and stabs him in the back.

White Walker #2: Loses in 1v1 combat to a decent human swordsman.

White Walker #3: Literally stands in the open, and stands still as a little girl throws a spear at his shoulder.  He doesn't flinch, just dies.

Honestly, Just give zombie mountain a valaryian sword and i have no doubts he could take the remaining 3 or 4 worthless white walkers at the same time.  Dragons toast the wights, mountain takes the walkers.  Easy. 

[Nendy Stark]

Lets not also forget that a single arrow can take down a wight now.  Gone are the days where you had to completely destroy and dismember them, or burn them.  Now an arrow to the chest takes down a skeleton permanently.  Way to go continuity!

[Robert Maybeth]

I love these kinds of questions. ...guessing what light to harken vs. What the show will do.   Since GRR Martin only writes one ep per season maybe that will be the one this happens?  

Probably at least one or two things have to happen,  certainly Dany needs the magic horn "dragonbinder" (currently in possession of the ironmen, the same ones coming to kidnap Danyraes) since this horn will bind dragons to the one who blows it.   If somebody else,  like the Euron Greyjoy blows it. ..who knows what can happen?  Also it might help if Bran makes it to the Wall, to spread word of what he learned about the White Walkers (created by the Children OTF as a weapon against men).  Maybe Mek, and the new red Priestess what's her name,  might be able to use their sorcery somehow (and maybe Jorah turns out to be Azor Ahai since Jon Snow is way too obvious).

[Smoke317]

4 hours ago, Nendy Stark said:

Lets not also forget that a single arrow can take down a wight now.  Gone are the days where you had to completely destroy and dismember them, or burn them.  Now an arrow to the chest takes down a skeleton permanently.  Way to go continuity!

Yeah. I kinda noticed that too. Those wights were giving Jon and the wildlings fits at Hardhome. They were dropping kinda easily in the cave. I think I may go watch that Hardhome scene again. Damn that was some amazing television. 

[Slaysman]

On 5/28/2016 at 6:56 PM, Nendy Stark said:

Dude. White Walkers can barely kill men, much less dragons.  The white walkers in the show are some of the most useless beings alive.

White Walker #1: A fat coward sneaks up on him and stabs him in the back.

White Walker #2: Loses in 1v1 combat to a decent human swordsman.

White Walker #3: Literally stands in the open, and stands still as a little girl throws a spear at his shoulder.  He doesn't flinch, just dies.

Honestly, Just give zombie mountain a valaryian sword and i have no doubts he could take the remaining 3 or 4 worthless white walkers at the same time.  Dragons toast the wights, mountain takes the walkers.  Easy. 

I think this was to show the vulnerabilities of the White Walkers, as well as their arrogance which translates into intelligence. The one White Walker was just there for the kid had no reason to suspect that Sam had a dagger made of obsidian. If you look closely at the end of the Hardhome scene after Jon kills the White Walker the Night King takes a sudden interest. As for the spear, again shows the weakness of the White Walkers since apparently fire cannot do shit.

That and it is also my understanding that Valyrian steel and obsidian are rare materials. I suspect the fight against the White Walkers will be far more awesome than the one in Hardhome.