Can't the Night King just wait them out? Confused

[Damon_Tor]

So it's established that there's no way they can feed all the men that just showed up at Winterfell, and certainly can't feed the dragons. So at this point all the White Walkers need to do is wait. Their armies don't need food, they don't mind the cold, and they don't appear to be on any kind of a schedule. If the dragons fly out to harass their army he can just throw javelins at them until they die.

Are we supposed to believe he's going to attack their fortified position? Why would he do this? What could possibly be his motivation?

The only thing that seems to make sense to me is that the Good Guys figure this out and abandon Winterfell and head South to take a castle that does have adequate provisions. Unfortunate that Dany torched all the food in the Reach last season. Oops!

[Ice Queen]

21 minutes ago, Damon_Tor said:

So it's established that there's no way they can feed all the men that just showed up at Winterfell, and certainly can't feed the dragons. So at this point all the White Walkers need to do is wait. Their armies don't need food, they don't mind the cold, and they don't appear to be on any kind of a schedule. If the dragons fly out to harass their army he can just throw javelins at them until they die.

Are we supposed to believe he's going to attack their fortified position? Why would he do this? What could possibly be his motivation?

The only thing that seems to make sense to me is that the Good Guys figure this out and abandon Winterfell and head South to take a castle that does have adequate provisions. Unfortunate that Dany torched all the food in the Reach last season. Oops!

The NK isn't going to Winterfell. I'll bet he's going to the Isle of Faces. 

[btfu806]

Well, we know they don't have enough food. Would the NK know? I guess he could just wait for whatever reason for everyone to die. Maybe that's what he has been doing for years now and is bored? No idea.

I am going to guess he needs the 3-eye raven dead for some reason. So he is just going hard after Bran. 

[Kajjo]

How should the Night King know? He broke through the wall and wants to .... yeah, what does he want? Bran? Jon? Isles of Faces?

I reckon it as beliebable that the NK forces into the battle.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

The Night King clearly wants something, or someone, and he's trying to get it.

[Ice Queen]

1 minute ago, bloodsteel bitterraven said:

The Night King clearly wants something, or someone, and he's trying to get it.

I've had a crackpot theory of my own for 23 years. I think that the original Ice was a White Walker sword, and it's buried in the lower levels of the crypts at Winterfell. 

[Corvinus85]

Why wouldn't the NK know? Wasn't the big theory last season the NK knew Dany was coming with her dragons, and that's why his army just sat there, watching Jon and co. (not) freeze to death? And the reason he was circling around north while everyone was traveling across continents for months, even years.

Also, would they seriously introduce the Isle of Faces now? I don't believe there was ever a hint in the show about the Isle. 

[btfu806]

16 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

The NK isn't going to Winterfell. I'll bet he's going to the Isle of Faces. 

What's at the isle of faces?

[House Cambodia]

1 minute ago, btfu806 said:

What's at the isle of faces?

Possibly the last community of Children of the Forest, who created the WW.

[btfu806]

1 minute ago, House Cambodia said:

Possibly the last community of Children of the Forest, who created the WW.

Oooo good to know, thanks! That would make sense.

[Ice Queen]

3 minutes ago, btfu806 said:

Oooo good to know, thanks! That would make sense.

It's also the place where the Children and the First Men agreed to the Pact. 

What if...all the NK wants is to be human again. Would he be able to do that at God's Eye?

[btfu806]

Just now, Ice Queen said:

It's also the place where the Children and the First Men agreed to the Pact. 

What if...all the NK wants is to be human again. Would he be able to do that at God's Eye?

As long as the NK isn't a walking WMD (which I know GRRM said he isn't, but I have less faith in D&D) then I would be good with almost anything...

[maiden of tarth]

4 hours ago, Ice Queen said:

I've had a crackpot theory of my own for 23 years. I think that the original Ice was a White Walker sword, and it's buried in the lower levels of the crypts at Winterfell. 

Oooooh I would love this to be true

[legba11]

I think we need to stick which have been (frequently) a part of the show as the NK's motivation.  If he has one.  

Things like the Isle Faces have little to no presence on the show, not likely to be suddenly dropped on the show as some NightKing ex Machina (yea that makes no sense).

 

Possibilities:

1. He has none.  He is creeping doom, similar to the Walking Dead.  Evil for evil's sake.  I hope not.  To be fair this is how much of nature is and is not really evil, he is just trying to make more babies.

2. He needs to kill the light.  Basically the Red Priests are correct and this is the apocalypse.  The light could be a person (Jon, Dany, Bran seems the most likely) or more of a concept (all of humanity, the lands of man, etc...).  I think this is the most likely.

3. He is actually thinking like a human general and trying to win a war he has been fighting for a very long time.  He is like Stannis and just waited patiently until he had the pieces he needed to win.  In this case, maybe he would think like a general lay siege (indirectly) to Winterfell and the armies by cutting off all their supplies.  This is supported by 8.1 as it explains everything he has done so far.

[Nerevanin]

He can. Imo the main reason why he won't do it (he still can though, he can simply siege Winterfell and wait) is that it wouldn't be a very good climax if we watched a bunch of characters for 8 seasons just to see them freeze to death one by one.

Putting that aside, it is possible that the NK wants someone who is in Winterfell alive (let's say Bran). It is also possible that the NK is a bored old man and wants some excitement and so he wants a good battle.

Regarding the creating of wights, my theory has been that the bodies have to be "infected" by some kind of a wight virus to eventually become wights, presumably before they die. If they aren't infected they won't become wights (that's why the body that Jon wanted to study in the books didn't become wight iirc). If this is true and everyone would die inside Winterfell become of starving and cold, the NK would lose a big potential army.

 

16 hours ago, Ice Queen said:

I've had a crackpot theory of my own for 23 years. I think that the original Ice was a White Walker sword, and it's buried in the lower levels of the crypts at Winterfell. 

I'm confused. Ice was reforged into two swords, one was given to Jaime who gave it Brienne iirc, the other one was given to Joffrey and idk who has it now. Or do you mean that there are two swords called "Ice" - one was the Ned's valyrian steel sword and the other one is a WW sword?

[L’Age d’or]

This season is pretty much The Walking Dead GOT edition. 

[TwiceBorn]

I can't stop thinking about all the corpses from the two major battles that happened at Winterfell (Stannis vs. Boltons and Jon vs. Ramsay) and the corpses of the Northmen and Ironborn who died there earlier (Theon vs. North) and all the corpses of Starks in the basement too.

Winterfell is the worst place to defend from the WW I can imagine. I guess the only thing the NK can do better (than attacking Winterfell right away) is to dragondash to King's Landing and resurrect the dead from the battle of Blackwater and lay waste to capital. I mean - how much of a dragonglass do they have there?

[ummester]

30 minutes ago, TwiceBorn said:

I can't stop thinking about all the corpses from the two major battles that happened at Winterfell (Stannis vs. Boltons and Jon vs. Ramsay) and the corpses of the Northmen and Ironborn who died there earlier (Theon vs. North) and all the corpses of Starks in the basement too.

Winterfell is the worst place to defend from the WW I can imagine. I guess the only thing the NK can do better (than attacking Winterfell right away) is to dragondash to King's Landing and resurrect the dead from the battle of Blackwater and lay waste to capital. I mean - how much of a dragonglass do they have there?

I've had exactly the same thought - why make a stand against a corpse army in a castle surrounded by the corpses of 2 major battles? Makes no sense.

None of it really makes any sense though. Why hang around on Westeros? Why not just do what Euron threatened to do and go chill on an island until winter is finished and then go back to Westeros in spring?

[ummester]

11 hours ago, legba11 said:

1. He has none.  He is creeping doom, similar to the Walking Dead.  Evil for evil's sake.  I hope not.  To be fair this is how much of nature is and is not really evil, he is just trying to make more babies.

2. He needs to kill the light.  Basically the Red Priests are correct and this is the apocalypse.  The light could be a person (Jon, Dany, Bran seems the most likely) or more of a concept (all of humanity, the lands of man, etc...).  I think this is the most likely.

3. He is actually thinking like a human general and trying to win a war he has been fighting for a very long time.  He is like Stannis and just waited patiently until he had the pieces he needed to win.  In this case, maybe he would think like a general lay siege (indirectly) to Winterfell and the armies by cutting off all their supplies.  This is supported by 8.1 as it explains everything he has done so far.

4. The NK is the pact - he is some kind of natural balance between magic and humanity trying to set things straight in Westeros.

[Kajjo]

2 hours ago, ummester said:

surrounded by the corpses of 2 major battles

We do not know what they did with all the corpes. Maybe they burned them, which is logically the right thing to do with 10.000 corpes. You cannot bury them all.... who digs 10.000 graves? So probably they are NOT surrounded by thousands corpses. By the way, the Battle of the bastards tokk place after they knew about wights. So they will have burned them after all.

There are plotholes, unfortunately, but not so many as some people like to construe.