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?

[ilikethesebooks]

Fly to Valaryia and raise a dragon army? WHAT IS STOPPING HIM BESIDES IT MAKES FOR AN AWFUL STORY?

[rdh1223]

Seems like maybe he needs recently dead pple no? Otherwise his army would be even bigger just from generations of free folk....

[#teamNightking]

I was just discussing this earlier today with someone. I think whatever power raises the dead still relies on the basic structural integrity of the corpse. It doesn't reattach bone to bone. So the fresher the dead the more effective the wight. And past a certain point they've reached an expiration date. Unless mummified I suppose but that's a whole other matter haha 

[Lurid Jester]

So the subject line is actually longer than your actual post.  Bravo. 

Dont get a job naming movies.

As for your actual question... it's not like dragon carcasses are just chilling out over there, and Westeros uses tombs.  Kind to hard to be a scary undead soldier when you're locked in a stone box.

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

The point though is there is probably a ton of shallow graves and corpses all over Westeros because of the War of the 5 Kings, so what's stopping the Night King from just doing a fly by and raising the dead.  Then you have wars on every front.  

[Col Cinders]

I think it is weather related.  NK has a plan for us all but he prefers the cold.  We saw snow fall on Jaime and as it cools off in the crownlands I think we will indeed see NK renew his forces as he brings salvation south to prove once and for all that when it comes to hairstyles he wears it better than Cersei.

I think the dead from the WotFK will rise.

[ShadowKitteh]

Probably nothing.

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

1 minute ago, Col Cinders said:

I think it is weather related.  NK has a plan for us all but he prefers the cold.  We saw snow fall on Jaime and as it cools off in the crownlands I think we will indeed see NK renew his forces as he brings salvation south to prove once and for all that when it comes to hairstyles he wears it better than Cersei.

I think the dead from the WotFK will rise.

He brings the storm though.

[Col Cinders]

Just now, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

He brings the storm though.

I get that.  I really do.  But my take is that he amplifies the storm more so than he makes the storm from scratch.

[Khorkalba]

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.

[Col Cinders]

5 minutes 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.

Think the greatest panic room ever, namely the Eyrie, will be put to the test with a holdout group of survivors besieged by the army of the dead?

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

12 minutes ago, Col Cinders said:

I get that.  I really do.  But my take is that he amplifies the storm more so than he makes the storm from scratch.

I would have agreed with you until we see Bran's vision of the Night King's creation, pretty sure that was way North and there was no snow.  Now that doesn't mean much but I think the land beyond the wall is all snow and never anything else because of the others.  

[Cron]

On 8/31/2017 at 6:03 PM, ilikethesebooks said:

Fly to Valaryia and raise a dragon army? WHAT IS STOPPING HIM BESIDES IT MAKES FOR AN AWFUL STORY?

I believe it's rational to assume there's a limit to what he can revive.

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.

In fact, I'd think that if that were not the case, his Army of the Dead would already number in the millions, just cuz of all the dead north of the Wall, but his army is NOT that big, it seems to be only around 100,000, which barely even accounts for the population of the Wildling army that Mance Rayder attacked Castle Black with.

In sum, I think the Night King's abilities are a LOT more limited than your question assumes.

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Col Cinders said:

Think the greatest panic room ever, namely the Eyrie, will be put to the test with a holdout group of survivors besieged by the army of the dead?

The Eyrie holds a few hundred people. If that's all that's going to survive, that's pretty much the end of Westerosi civilization.

And it's not like the people of Essos need more elbow room to expand into in the near future with half of their own continent is empty and the Dothraki all killed by the dead and never coming home to stop them from expanding.

[ummester]

4 hours ago, #teamNightking said:

I was just discussing this earlier today with someone. I think whatever power raises the dead still relies on the basic structural integrity of the corpse. It doesn't reattach bone to bone. So the fresher the dead the more effective the wight. And past a certain point they've reached an expiration date. Unless mummified I suppose but that's a whole other matter haha 

In the books, yes indeed - the structural integrity of the body is important. The show with it's stupid skelebones in Season 4 crapped all over this piece of logic - it was when the show first started falling apart in a big way.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

7 hours ago, #teamNightking said:

I was just discussing this earlier today with someone. I think whatever power raises the dead still relies on the basic structural integrity of the corpse. It doesn't reattach bone to bone. So the fresher the dead the more effective the wight. And past a certain point they've reached an expiration date. Unless mummified I suppose but that's a whole other matter haha 

I agree with this in the book but we got the Harryhausen skeletons in the show.

[UnViserion]

I wonder if Jon had all the bodies burned from the battle of the bastards. You'd think he would have. but if he didn't that's gonna be a swift 4,000 to 5,000 pickup for the NK.

[MyLittleFinger]

5 hours ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

I agree with this in the book but we got the Harryhausen skeletons in the show.

Yup. Just chilling in front of the tree for years in case some kid shows up.

[Khorkalba]

12 hours ago, Cron said:

I believe it's rational to assume there's a limit to what he can revive.

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.

In fact, I'd think that if that were not the case, his Army of the Dead would already number in the millions, just cuz of all the dead north of the Wall, but his army is NOT that big, it seems to be only around 100,000, which barely even accounts for the population of the Wildling army that Mance Rayder attacked Castle Black with.

In sum, I think the Night King's abilities are a LOT more limited than your question assumes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[#teamNightking]

15 minutes ago, Khorkalba said:

I believe it's rational to assume there's a limit to what he can revive.

There has to be some kind of limit. If bones are separated from each other I don't see how they intelligently scape along and find each other and reconnect. But this is TVthrones anything is possible. In various other fantasy skeleton undead are numerous and I don't have an issue with skeleton undead per se it's just there has to be a reanimation limit or all dead from a million years ago to now could be raised as long as they could claw their way out to the surface. Or maybe the limit is all magic takes a price and maybe the NK is limited to only three raise dead per day of a maximum of 15 hit dice.